Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Gift of Grief

Today has been one of the most beautiful days I’ve had in a long while. The kind of day for which there are not words to describe the sweetness.

Three days ago was the eight month mark of my baby’s death. That day hit me hard, and continues to. The tears have flowed freely. Sleep eludes me.

How is it that those two realities can coexist, that such deep beauty and deep sorrow might live side by side? That they might dwell together in the same breath?

I don’t know, really. All I know is that it is so.

When our baby died, so much was lost. It was not just her little life that was snuffed out. We lost a whole future with her, a lifetime of tangled curls and skinned knees and laughter. I lost a part of myself. We are left only with anniversaries of what might have been.

We who grieve often focus on what has been lost, and for good reason. What we’ve lost is beyond value, the loss itself beyond imagining.

But, incredibly, I have found that gifts have come tucked in amongst the grief, too. Surprising gifts, and often small, but no less valuable in their smallness . . .
 
Today I am writing over at Still Standing Magazine!  

2 comments:

  1. I just found your blog through Still Standing. I am touched by the sentiments you express in this post...so beautifully written.

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    1. Thank you so much, Katy, and thanks for coming to visit me here. xoxo

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