I'm back to counting weeks.
Tomorrow, me and my unimaginable grief and sorrow will return to work...to my life...as if nothing is different.
Yesterday I hauled my unimaginable grief and sorrow with me to the PAWS 4 A Cause run/walk fundraiser. I wore the XXXL t-shirt that had been ordered special for my pregnant belly and I only briefly cried twice. It was a decent day...the rain held off until we were done. But I walked around as though a blanket were thrown over me...everything muffled by the unbearable wrongness of everything.
"This is one of the things I'm afraid of. The agonies, the mad midnight moments, must, in the course of nature, die away. But what will follow? Just this apathy, this dead flatness? Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea?" --C.S.Lewis--
How do people react to unimaginable grief and sorrow? They tell you they can't imagine what you're going through...that they're thinking of you...and then they return to their life. That's the way it goes.
I'm currently selling all my conception, pregnancy, loss, and pregnancy after loss books on eBay...check em out...prices are very reasonable. I decided to sell them when I consulted the section of Empty Cradle, Broken Heart titled Another Loss.
After your first loss, your greatest fear is that it will happen again. If it does, it can be devestating. You may wonder if it's a sign of deeper problems, a prelude to chronic infertility or an inability to bear a healthy baby. After a number of losses you may feel more anxious than ever when you are pregnant. You may fear that you could never survive another loss. But you are probably more resilient than you think. And you will probably gather up the courage to try again.
PROBABLY?!?!? Gee...thanks for that helpful insight. I guess me and my unimaginable grief and sorrow are on our own.
One week down...how many more are in store?
9 comments:
I wish there was something I could do to make it easier; I don't even think time helps all that much. I'm so sorry.
I may "return to my life" after saying such things, but you and your family are never far from my heart or thoughts. I planted my flower gardens over the weekend and planted a flower each for Alex and Travis. You are more than an "internet friend" to me, Kate. I love you dearly and I will do/say anything I possibly can if I think it will help you cope at all.
i like what c s lewis says about grief giving way to flatness, and to boredom. okay, "like" may not be the right word. how about, i identify with the inherent truth in the statement.
Though I "living my life" I can tell you that since I read your husband's post, you have not been far from my thoughts... and I don't even know you in real life.
My deepest, deepest regrets that you have had to endure so much suffering.
grief is isolating. this is a bad place for you guys. i hate that you are there kate. it's wrong.
you are in my thoughts. i know that my thoughts aren't much but you and your boys are remembered. my thoughts are with y'all.
love- n
I'm so sorry, Catherine, that even the resources available to mothers like us fail to address the depths of our grief when it comes to multiple losses. I, too, read and re-read my pregnancy after a loss books when we learned that something may be wrong with our 2nd baby, and was very disappointed in the one paragraph mention about what to do if it happens again, which offered no solace whatsoever. I don't look at any of my books anymore either, they all have failed at some point. I hope you'll be able to make your own way, even without a map. Much love, Alysse
You don't know me, but I have been following your blog and just started my own. I know there is nothing I can say (that is what people keep telling me too), but I am thinking about you and am very very sorry for your sadness. I wish I could take it all away. My baby girl was born 2 months ago tomorrow. She lived for 7 days. I know you can't be bothered with my sadness right now -- you have enough of your own, but I wanted you to know that I too am counting weeks -- time away from her birth and death and toward something.....but I am not sure of what. Just counting and crossing off days on the calendar.
Wishing you peace.....
thinking of you today and hoping your return to work is as painless as possible.
What everyone else said...yes my life goes on, apart -- and i can turn away from your tragedy, whereas you cannot. But still, it has touched me in my core, and i think of you and your boys many times a day....and wish i could do more than that...
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