When I was new in my loss, She was the one I turned to; companionship on those harder days. She was the one who listened, who held me like a mother. She kept me alive when life was hard.
She feels more distant, sometimes, today. Not distant as in She has gone away, but more that I have. More that I have maybe “grown up” in my grief, feeling the urge to sit on my own these days. Is grief like a life journey in this way?
I wake up in the morning now, and most days I am fine. (I’m not fine, btw—I stare at the ceiling, sometimes for an hour before I get out of bed). I wake up and I function. I am back to my old level of performance at work, and sometimes this frightens me.
Sometimes it feels like I have forgotten him.
I haven’t forgotten him, of course. I write nearly constantly. I talk about him and how his death could have been prevented. I do outreach. I spread his story.
But I realized, the other day, when I was able to tell someone in such a calm manner, “My first child was stillborn”—I realized in the contrast between now and the early days, when I literally could not form those words—This feels like an unwanted new world to me.
And maybe what I have forgotten, is not my son himself, but how it felt to grieve.
In the early days, she was always present. She carried me like a mother, the kind I wanted to be. She was a pair of dark arms to crawl into, comforting darkness, my genuine everything.
And then the world intruded, and things started again to make sense to me. And sometimes now I hate it. This adulthood; this integrated grief.
Sometimes I wish I could devolve, go back in time, become small. Crawl into her bed like my daughter does in mine. Find comfort in the darkness. Be cradled like I cradled my child.
And I wonder if She misses this too?
Does Grief mourn me?
Related Posts:
Write Your Grief: Grief is a Mother, Too
Miranda’s Blog: It’s Always 29 June
