Coming up

As my very busy December freight-trained on, once in a while I would pause, briefly (very briefly), to note that this fourth time around it didn't seem bad. In fact, it seemed downright ordinary. The first snow didn't put me in the hole, the cold didn't chill beyond the bone. It was just winter, a season that I used to love, and that, it seemed, I could love again. As I did my little jig for being all kinds of functional, I did wonder, in that whispered way you sometimes wonder to yourself, whether it wasn't just because I was so busy. End of term is never a time for tea and scones (except if said scones are eaten out of a paper bag in the car as you drive from one place you had to be to the next... um, but if you find yourself in such a position in my city, I can tell you where to get the scones), but the end of your first semester of solo teaching? Definitely not. And yet, it seemed more than suppression. It really seamed my grief season hadn't started, as it had been doing, at the very cusp of the first winter month.

It's not that I wasn't missing A. I was. I am. All the time. It's just that I wasn't knocked back on my ass, the way I usually am this time of year. That is, until I was. New Year's Eve, the day that has been especially hard in past years, tapped me on the shoulder but otherwise kept its distance. And then January 2nd gut punched me, dropped me to the ground, and sat on top of me for a while, apparently thinking deep thoughts. "Four weeks and counting, beyotch," it said, strolling away.

It's grey out. That's more a statement of mood than of actual observation. These days when I venture outside and encounter sunshine, I am surprised. I shouldn't be-- it's winter, not polar twilight. In the meantime, things are happening, most of them even good. I have classes to teach for this semester, and even in the area that doesn't require a lot of prep, so there's hope for family time. Monkey is making progress in some important ways. The Cub is speaking, and turning out to have as wicked a sense of humor as we sort of expected based on his pantomime gags back from the mostly-nonverbal near past. And maybe that's what it's all about-- as always, as in the early days, time stands still for no-one. No matter how much I may want it to pause, to stay, to let me catch my breath, it marches on.

And then there are the new twists. Despite my own firm beliefs and repeated statements to the effect of grief being something that changes with us, something that doesn't really get that much better, but something that we can learn to live with better, despite all that once in a while I surprise myself when I realize that this, whatever this happens to be at the moment, this I did not expect. That is, I keep stepping on the same rake-- the one where it turns out that I do have expectations, even as I tell myself and the world that I do not.

This year, this seems to be the reading of tea-leaves that is momentary and fleeting imagining of what he would've been like now. That's not exactly it-- I can't imagine it, I know I can't. Because, and this thought is not in any way new either, that's what is particularly sucky about our kind of loss-- we know jack squat about these children of ours. But usually, and by that I mean vast majority of the time over the last almost 4 years, I haven't been able to or even tempted to go down that road. He's dead, you see, and so he can't be alive, and he can't be one, or two, or three.

But suddenly now, suddenly I am straining for a glimpse of what he could've been at four. I catch myself straining when the Cub is interacting with older boys, especially the youngest son of our friends, the kid who was supposed to be A's best friend. I catch myself straining when Monkey and the Cub are raising a ruckus inside or laughing like maniacs sledding down the little hill in front of our house. It's only for a second, less than that-- a fraction of a second. But it's there, and as I swat it away, I also wonder why now? Is it because the Cub is speaking? Is it because Monkey was four the year I was pregnant with A? I don't know. All I know is that this is new and newly painful. But also reassuring in that way where the hurt is too real for him to have been a dream.

I am also changing. On January 2nd, as I sat in front of my laptop with tears welling up for no particular reason, I chatted a friend to ask for help. This is not something I usually do, especially not something I do when the reason for needing help is grief. But I took a deep breath and jumped. Not today, I said, but sometime this month, can we have coffee? I am going to need some TLC. She's a good friend, and there's a coffee in my future. One I am looking forward to very much.

How far into this are you? How have your significant dates been for you so far? How have the periods coming up on these dates been? How has all of this changed for you with time? Are there new facets of grief that you are discovering? What are they?

Comments

[Sally]

Two and a half years, and to be honest I am finding it really tough. My family get it, my closest friends get it but most have no idea just how much I still hurt. I have said this a few times lately, but every day to me feels like it happened yesterday. I know to everyone else, it is very much old news and I'm finding more and more distance growing between myself and others. It is a weird place to be in, two and a half years out. Far enough out for it not to sting as much, but still recent enough for not a great deal of healing to have taken place. I feel so misunderstood and alone lately. I'm so broken.

I just miss her.

[Jeanette]

i'm almost 18 months without Florence, and I wish I could feel better, I think because it seems to be that everyone else wants me to feel better. Of course, I'm not deep in that early rawness of grief, but is it still ok to cry every day? I just don't know.
I have noticed that lately I think of florence as she could be by now. I didn't think that would happen, but it has. I find myself staring too long, too longingly at 18 month old girls and wondering.
I just know I'm tired of myself,sick of myself, and it hurts all of the time.

[niobe]

I don't do ((hugs)). But if I did, you'd definitely get one.

And, after reading your post, what's echoing in my head is an endless chorus of "everybody must get scones." Which goes to show how long ago it was and how far away I am.

[moplans]

I agree with niobe, I need some scones

My bf told me that after four years it stopped feeling like someone had punched her in the stomach every day.

[Brooke]

I had Eliza at 34 weeks so yesterday was the day I had hoped she would be born (the anniversary of my first date with my husband) and the 15th was her official due date. These days are hard. She's been gone six weeks, but I keep thinking about how I expected things to be in January, all the plans I had, all the excitement and anticipation. I can't believe I've lost everything. I have always been a huge planner--I don't like surprises because I'd rather enjoy the expectation. And now I can't look to the future at all. I don't want to write on the 2011 calendar because I don't want our lives to go on without her. I don't want to make plans for the future because I am terrified they will be inevitably thwarted in the cruelest way possible. I want to believe it gets easier with time and yet there is so much evidence to the contrary. Six weeks feels like an eternity and like I was just in the hospital yesterday. And now, now is the very time that she was supposed to be born and I was supposed to be bringing her home.

[Monique]

Two and a half years out, I grieve, mostly privately, and most people who know me wouldn`t even know how much I miss my boy. I have two friends and my father who know. Missing him isn`t as heart-wrenching or as painful as it once was and I suppose I`ve learned to live with it. I know that life goes on, but just not in the way I imagined.

[Danielle]

The two new discoveries that seem obvious now that I know them- two babies who aren't here means two separate grief seasons. Somehow, I thought that moving farther away from the first loss would make the grief over the second one easier, too. Surprise- it has its own clock. Discovery two: the grief of losing the babies we almost had gets easier with time. The grief of losing the possibility of being able to have any more gets harder.

[Olivia]

I'm 1.5 years out from the death of my daughter. The "firsts" were awful.

Now I'm starting the second round and it's significantly less awful. I've given birth to my sub which has helped immensely -- a joyful distraction from the pain.

I still think about my little girl daily and it's still very difficult to see little girls who are the age she would now be (21 months). And I still need to visit sites like this to be with Veronica and tend to my grief.

I'm relieved to be where I am now and not that broken woman I was 19 months ago when V. first died. But I wonder where I'd be if I hadn't had my sub. So my heart aches for those who are still trying for their rainbow baby.

[Jennifer]

It was four years in December. It feels as if everyone has forgotten him, but I still long to hear his name and I so very much want to talk about him. Monkey has taken quite an interest in his twin brother and it breaks my heart to hear him tell me how much he wanted to keep him. Monkey is my constant reminder of what Noah would have been. Everyday, I see Monkey learn something new and wonder what it would have been like with two. The pain is no less, just different. I grieve for my lost son, but also for Monkey who so longs for his brother. I mind knows that Noah is better off and no longer struggling, but heart still selfishly wants him here with me. Not a day passes that I don't think of him. I still miss him so much.

[Andrea]

Thank you for this. It's what I needed to read today. I lost Nina nine months ago. I had to count them on my fingers, I lose track of time. But I don't lose track of her. She's always there, more so now, I'm not sure why. She's there everyday, the way she was in the beginning, especially at night. And I'm always surprised at what I wind up thinking about: telling my mom she was gone, my best friend weeping at my kitchen table. These moments come to me and suddenly I long for her—and become angry again. At how unfair it is that she was taken, how fucking unfair. Four moms are pregnant in my son's preschool class. Four! Well, three now, one just gave birth, and I can't look at them, I cannot ask how they're feeling, I couldn't even congratulate the father of the newborn. And as far as I know, they don't know about my loss. I don't talk to people about her if I didn't know them before. I figure why burden them? A couple people have learned from my blog, but I haven't written much about my loss there either. I'm stuck in some kind of purgatory of living with her loss and maybe not sharing it or talking about it as much as I need to. And I can't seem to find myself. I need to live again completely, but I feel pulled under. And nobody really knows it. Nobody knows why. Nobody gets it. Even my family, even my closest friends think I have moved on, think I am okay, but grief doesn't leave you, it just changes. As you said. Thank you for making me feel like I'm not crazy, for making me feel like I'm not alone.

[Sherri]

it's been almost two and a half months since Kristen's been gone, and she was due March 19th (scheduled section). I keep hoping that after I get past her due date things will be easier. But I know deep down, they won't. She'll still be gone, my two year old will still have no sibling. Life will still suck without the family I thought I was going to have, and worked so hard to create. I don't know if we'll try again for another one yet.. just another of the decisions I have put off thinking about until after March. I think I hate March.

[reenie]

I lost my son 7 years, 1 month and 26 days go. I don't know what it says about me that I was able to do that math rather quickly without looking at a calendar. It is easier now, I don't think about him every day, and when I do, it's more a bittersweet missing than the punch in the gut it used to be. I used to feel both hollow and twisted inside like I was being physically wrung as tightly as possible and yet cavernously empty and filled with cobwebs. I have since had two more sons, and I love them both immensly...and I think that helps - they fill my heart exceedingly well.

It will get better and you will never forget. Life can still be good even if it's never the same.

[Miryam]

coffee.

(you bring the scones, I'll snag the wicked-dark chocolate)

[mariana]

He would have been four weeks the day before yesterday. The day after tomorrow will be four weeks since he died. Four weeks since my world ended. And it feels like it's ending more every day. Last week I was looking forwad to every night because i knew i got through another day. Like every day that passed was getting me closer to that day when i wouldn't hurt so much. Now i hate nights because i know when i wake up i'll have to go through it all over again. I have no energy left. My husband went to work tonight and i was left alone. I read a post on facebook by a cousin who said that this xmass we are having a 'family reunion'. I let out a primal scream that took me by surprise and for a moment there i thought i was losing my mind. I cried and was happy my husband wasn't here to see me in that state. I don't like upsetting him. I guess it's still sinking in. After 38 weeks of 'normal' pregnancy and no warning i left the hospital with no baby. He was our first and only child.

[j.]

zoe would have been 2 on december 3rd. life without her has been raw, incomplete, tear-streaked and painful. my body acted as though pregnancy were toxic, i was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum and after numerous trips to the er to get fluids and being admitted to the hospital for severe dehydration, a kidney infection and the loss of 18 lbs in 4 weeks, i finally listened to my body and terminated the pregnancy. i ended the life of a baby that we desperately wanted. and now that is an integral part of my grief. guilt.