A theme I am coming across in grief therapy, whether talking to other loss moms, a therapist, books written by the subjects experts, and accounts dedicated to the cause, is that in grief comes isolation. One book I am leaning on heavily is by Alan Wolfelt PhD, and he describes it as a rule of thirds. One third of your friends will be supportive when you need to mourn, One third will make you feel worse, and one third will neither help nor hinder.
It has been exactly 4 weeks. Which means we meet another milestone. One month. We entered the month she was supposed to arrive in our arms. We turned days into weeks, and weeks into months. A countdown has continued up instead of down to her birthday. Time is simply moving wrong for me. I am lost in it. though I know its been one month, I am still stuck in that day. I replay it over, and over, and over, and over again. So I cannot be expected to move forward when my life is playing on a loop.
Our society believes that in order to grieve and mourn, we must also move on. Push those feelings aside and live for our lost. Its a wonderful notion. It's only believed by those lucky enough to not experience loss. And if you are one of those people, O how I hope you truly treasure not knowing this feeling. It's so easy to take for granted what others would do anything to have. I used to be one of those people. And I was learning through grieving my sister, how fortunate we were. I believed myself to be aware, but child loss brought an even deeper, possibly the deepest form of this feeling. Its the only loss of a physical and emotional relationship in the sense of creation.
However, I find myself reading these books, and talking to other people about grief, and seeing that though I do still feel alone, I have never been more connected to people. I had an instant community online, of strangers who reached out in knowing. Making the first days while I was still in actual shock, bearable. I have had people around the world donate daily to a cause that is in Anna's honor but also saving the lives of people they will never hear the thank you for. I have 8 people's blood in my veins, I will never know their names, but I owe them my life. Friends who have come out after years of silence. Neighbors I barely knew, now my only entrance into joining the world a piece at a time. A book club I started a year ago on a whim, now my personal therapy sessions with open arms. Messages that flow in because people are choosing love over worrying about saying the wrong thing. People that allow me the space to voice my emotions online and don't shy away from it, but embrace it fully.
"You need someone to hold your hand while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried." - Megan Devine.
In this new world I have been thrown into without choice, many people unfortunately find themselves being told by everyone around them to 'get better.' And I have found the actual support instead to work through this at my pace, and my way. There will never be full healing, there is a part of my heart that died that day with her. Something that like her, can never be replaced. But I have begun to find pockets of safe keeping. And I am so grateful to be able to share both my living and my loss.
No one will be untouched by loss completely. My new favorite book, 'IT'S OK THAT YOU'RE NOT OK' begins with a foreword by Mark Nepo. "If we commit to love, we will inevitably know loss and grief. Yet powerfully and mysteriously, knowing both love and loss is what brings us fully and deeply alive." I know I will unfortunately welcome others to this type of loss, some I know, some strangers that were like me, screaming into the void to be heard. And I am able to see that future, any future, because I am being allowed to grieve now. To everyone who is on this journey with me. I see you, each one who has been by my side, in all and every way. Though sometimes I am not able to say it, thank you.
with love, lissa