Sunday, January 22, 2012

Two Months Later



Two months ago today, I held my daughter in my arms for the first and last time.

It's hard to believe that it's already and only been two months.

Looking back, I feel amazed that I survived those two months, especially the days immediately we after we received the worst news that parents can hear -- that our daughter had died before she breathed, of no known cause.  I was in shock, unable to feel my grief, to cry, to wail for my loss.  I felt strangely normal.

And yet, looking back from today, I can see how dark that time was.  How afraid I felt, how alone.  I can see that every moment, every movement was torture, even though I couldn't tell in the moment.  From today, I can see how hard it was to breath, how each  inhalation was a desperate, gasping clutch at life.  I can see now that I breathed like a drowning person.  That I was a drowning person.

Sometimes -- most times -- I long to go back to those days.  My daughter felt nearer, and my husband's grief was more obvious.  I wish I could stay in the hospital cradling my daughter's body forever.  In spite of the pain all around, I felt safe there.

But every so often I want to live, live into the future, even though I cannot see what the earthly future could ever hold for me now.  Because if I keep living, then although I am moving away from my daughter's death, I am drawing closer to the Life everlasting with our Father, and with her.

That is what I am living for, two months later.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for that video, it really touched me.

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  2. Oh Beth. I know there are such good things ahead of you. <3 -Shannon

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  3. aptly summed up, Beth. beautiful song/video

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  4. [...] Eve’s candle burning in the morning dark // one thousand gifts seen and counted [...]

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  5. [...] that your death was not the end of the story.  From time to time I smell the scent of your lilac candle in places where it just should not be, and I wonder.  I want you to be in Heaven, to stay safe in [...]

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"I am glad you are here with me."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King