I wanted to write a post about how I feel better. About how now that I have birthed a breathing, screaming rainbow baby boy, things feel different. About how when I look back on this pregnancy, I can see that I was an anxious, crazy, hormonal, emotional, grieving mess. That I was not myself. That I am so relieved to no longer be living in a place of such deep anxiety.
I wanted to write about how I am myself again, but that it is a new self than one year ago, before my daughter died. About how I feel okay with that. Glad, even.
But I've come to know many other mothers who have also had babies die, and I still read their stories. And here's the thing -- I feel better, there has been healing . . . but there is a missing part. An aching hole in my heart, and in the universe. It's a hole of absence -- and not just of my daughter, but of all the daughters and all the sons that just barely were and now aren't in this world. A hole of gasping grief for those babies that are gone.
I am feeling that emptiness today. I am not even necessarily expressly sad, but there is a yearning within me, a sort of communal keening of my heart in tune with all the other hearts that have lost.
If I didn't believe in God before, death would make me believe. Because there is nothing more unnatural, nothing more sacredly wrong feeling, than death.
That is what I am feeling today, I think -- the vacuum of the sweet and beautiful souls taken by the ugliness of death. Just as I was writing this post, I learned of yet one more woman who has recently experienced the trauma of babyloss, the hurt that just shouldn't be.
We are living in a beautiful world broken by ugliness and death. I have become much more sensitive to, much more aware of that brokenness since becoming a bereaved mother. How could I never before see how much pain people and animals are carrying? And while I do have hope, a very real and living hope in a vibrant, dynamic, and loving God . . . the void created by that pain, and especially by my daughter's death, still yawns wide within me.
This will never feel okay.
I wanted to write about how I am myself again, but that it is a new self than one year ago, before my daughter died. About how I feel okay with that. Glad, even.
But I've come to know many other mothers who have also had babies die, and I still read their stories. And here's the thing -- I feel better, there has been healing . . . but there is a missing part. An aching hole in my heart, and in the universe. It's a hole of absence -- and not just of my daughter, but of all the daughters and all the sons that just barely were and now aren't in this world. A hole of gasping grief for those babies that are gone.
I am feeling that emptiness today. I am not even necessarily expressly sad, but there is a yearning within me, a sort of communal keening of my heart in tune with all the other hearts that have lost.
If I didn't believe in God before, death would make me believe. Because there is nothing more unnatural, nothing more sacredly wrong feeling, than death.
That is what I am feeling today, I think -- the vacuum of the sweet and beautiful souls taken by the ugliness of death. Just as I was writing this post, I learned of yet one more woman who has recently experienced the trauma of babyloss, the hurt that just shouldn't be.
We are living in a beautiful world broken by ugliness and death. I have become much more sensitive to, much more aware of that brokenness since becoming a bereaved mother. How could I never before see how much pain people and animals are carrying? And while I do have hope, a very real and living hope in a vibrant, dynamic, and loving God . . . the void created by that pain, and especially by my daughter's death, still yawns wide within me.
This will never feel okay.
You are so right, Beth....none of this will ever feel okay...
ReplyDeleteNope, never okay
ReplyDeleteIt will never feel okay and that is perfectly said. Irionically I wrote a blog post this morning about how much I miss her. I woke up fine, totally fine and than it hit me like a ton of bricks; the sadness, the pain, the tears. I miss her tremendously and it will never be okay. Thank you for validating that today. xo xo
ReplyDeleteNever ever okay. Xo
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written Beth!!! I am pleased you are experiencing healing thru and with Jacob! seeing you smile these past weeks has been so lovely! I think as moms and parents its never ok to bury our children, just seems so wrong on every level because we long for a long and happy life for them and with them. Also our hearts expect a natural order and what you went thru wasn't. Much love my friend!
ReplyDelete