5-8-18

An entry from my personal journal written during Grace’s first birthday month.

I’ve been feeling like a mess lately- physically and emotionally. I’m trying to embrace it, but lack of control has never been my strong suit. For almost an entire year now I’ve held the weight of my world in my neck, shoulder, and jaw… I don’t mean to, I don’t try to, it’s just what comes naturally to me and I’ve been trying not to force myself to do anything that doesn’t feel natural.

The thing is, sometimes you have to force yourself. In the last 6 weeks or so I’ve realized that when the physical tension is eased from my body, when I’m comfortable and safe, the tears come. Without a physical residence for my sadness, I find release- and it feels amazing. All the exhaustion, heartache, and regret pour out of me and I know that I am healing and cleansing… I am making room.

For almost a year now I’ve been resisting- unwilling to let go of what should have been and scared to accept Grace’s physical absence from our family as reality. Accepting and letting go felt like saying it was okay, felt like forgetting. What I didn’t realize was that it didn’t mean I would stop grieving or missing Grace, it just meant I would be more open to having her with me in a different way.

Two weeks ago, in a moment of pure exhaustion and pain, I felt fear and anxiety take over as I was forced to make some decisions for my physical health that felt hard and triggering, I felt Grace with me, urging me to be brave, promising me it would all be okay, assuring me she was with me and her baby sister. A peace washed over me that I haven’t experienced since the days surrounding her birth- a time when I felt so close to her still that her absence didn’t register as real.

It’s all coming together and making sense. In doing the hard work of letting Grace’s physical life go, I am planting seeds for growth. I’m watering them with my tears, nurturing them with release and love. I’m making space for the spiritual life that Grace will have within me and the people who love her. While her life may not exist in the eyes of many, it will live inside of me forever. When I can let her live through me, I know it’s not all in vain.

None of this is to say that the sadness is gone or going away. I will grieve my beautiful daughter until I can be with her again… I’m just realizing that grief isn’t an inactive experience- it is work, and there is a beauty and fullness to be found in it. Grief does not exist without love… so I’m trying my very best to embrace it, this mother’s love is too big and too powerful to hold inside any longer.