Contractions
I read a *book in the past year that helped to define and create context for my grief in a way that I was unable to find the words for. So many people like to describe grief like the tide, coming in waves. While I understand the analogy, I bucked against the pleasant visual. My grief didn’t feel like being overcome by a wave… it felt like a battle, a constant struggle between my sadness and my inability to surrender. Maybe if I could learn to let go and give up control I could let those waves sweep me up off the shore and drown me, but instead I dig my fingers into the sand and try to hang on. This book instead described grief like labor and the moments of acute pain and sorrow, the contractions. When you have a contraction you don’t know how long it will last, and even if only 30 seconds they can feel like an eternity. If you don’t take the time to catch your breath between, they will cascade like an avalanche on top of you- sending you searching for any way to escape. My grief is like this.
After two beautiful medicated births, I was ready to try something new with Grace. After experiencing more physical pain in pregnancy than my two prior, research took me down the road of unmedicated labor and delivery and I began to prepare like one would for a marathon. Yoga, chiropractic care, meditation, and hypnosis training… I was ready. Although my body was in the early stages of labor when we found out that Grace had died, induction was necessary since her cause of death at that time was unknown and concerns for my health were forefront. Taking a pill that I knew would bring my daughter earthside, where I would have to say goodbye, felt like I was in the Matrix… there was no turning back. When the contractions came stronger, I cried for an epidural, this wasn’t the birth I was planning, this wasn’t what I wanted. But as the anesthesiologist worked to place the spinal block, my body worked faster to bring Grace into my arms. Contractions slammed into me like Mac trucks, one on top of the other. I worked to keep my body still with big deep breaths, relaxing my shoulders under the steady pressure of the nurse’s hands. Before my body had time to go numb, our baby was born.
When I think about my grief I think about those contractions - the way I had to breath and be still to survive, to let go, to give birth. It’s rhythmic in that it comes and goes, some moments more painful than others, but always present. The best thing we can do is take the moments of rest between “contractions” to prepare for the next. To fully embrace the love and joy that our loss has brought into our lives, to take deep and cleansing breaths, to forgive and find peace. I’m not always very good at this. Sometimes the pain lingers just enough for me to feel anxious about when it will swallow me up again. I don’t want to surrender to that pain, it hurts too much. But there isn’t an epidural for this- or at least not one that I’m willing to explore. Acknowledging and sitting with our hurts and our suffering is one of the only ways we can ever find peace. It’s a practice and one that I have the rest of my life to work on… that feels so daunting today. My hope is that it won’t always feel so hard, that I won’t always fight it. My hope is that I fall in love with the “in between” and live my life with so much joy and love that the contractions are welcome moments of growth and connection.
(this is my TOP recommendation to those looking for a book after suffering a loss or supporting someone through a loss)