Do you ever have one of those moments when you are really angry or hurt (often both) about something and you are ranting or crying (or both) to someone and you say something petty? And you know it is petty when you say it...like bemoaning why we lost OUR baby when there were plenty of other babies in the NICU whose parents never came to visit or flat out abandoned them because the health challenges were too much...and then whoever is listening to you totally calls you on it. Like when my husband reminded me that we wouldn't wish this on anyone --- which is true --- but then you just cry harder because not only are you angry and hurt but then you are also petty and someone else now knows it and you feel even worse for letting the ugly out.
I'm not going to lie folks, this past week has been really, really hard for me. I cried so much before Hailey passed. And then after, I just felt so relieved for her that I didn't cry much at all and I could talk about her easily and carry on with my daily chores. But this week, I have been an unmitigated disaster. Yesterday morning, I cried when I dropped off the rest of my breastmilk to another military spouse who could make use of it. She'd never met me before but kindly gave me a hug and let me know it was okay.
Then I went shopping. I've been so angry at my body this week. I think when people experience stress, they either eat their feelings or their feelings starve them. I usually fall into the former camp, but watching Hailey suffer took away my appetite. In the hospital, if I even smelled food, I became nauseous. I lost a lot of weight and was too dizzy and weak to exercise, which would have been a healthy way to deal with my stress. I knew I needed to eat. I wasn't trying to be difficult. I just couldn't. So, I went to see the doctor about going on anti-anxiety or anti-depression medicine so I'd be able to at least eat.
I stayed on the medication for about 45 days, and it did help me a lot. I was able to eat again. I survived burying our daughter, and I weaned myself off the medicine. And I instantly gained back six or 7 lbs. Just enough to make me feel like a 20 lb sausage crammed into a 10 lb casing every time I tried to put on my normal pants. Not enough to keep maternity pants up, though, and psychologically - I can't go back to wearing that stuff. Every time I caught sight of my body in the mirror this week, I raged. Not because my body isn't in the great shape it was before I had kids...but because my body looks like I had a baby and I don't have my baby. It is just another painful reminder of all that I have lost...just like the empty nursery I am sitting across from right now as I write this.
So I went shopping, and bought some leggings and baggy tops and looser jeans. The cashier made small talk with me as I checked out...inevitably the question about kids came up...and I didn't know what to say and I just started tearing up. I whispered that my daughter passed not quite two months ago. The cashier felt bad, and told me everything happens for a reason. I believe that, and she was well intentioned, but in that moment, it hurt. Everything has hurt this week.
Grief is cruel in the way it evolves over time to haunt us in new ways. I'd been doing so well. Writing on here, taking comfort in friends and family, hoarding paint chips as I consider how to decorate our new house, and filling out my grad school applications so I can go back and get my Masters in Social Work like Hailey has inspired me to do. And then I just crashed.
A few weeks ago, a friend showed me an illustration of how we think a journey through grief will be rather like a straight line when in reality, it is kind of a crazy scribble that looks rather like a tumbleweed. This is so true. On my shopping trip yesterday, I was also looking for cute shoes for my son. I popped in to Old Navy and realized the last time I'd been shopping (in there or really anywhere else) had been before Hailey died. I'd been shopping for her. I inwardly raged - really on the borderline of hysteria - at all the cute girl clothes before me. And yet the store didn't have one dang pair of shoes in my son's size. I turned around and walked back to my car before I lost it for the third time in as many hours.
I worry about trying to have another baby. I worry that I will never have another daughter and I will always wonder what life would have been like with Hailey and that I will never feel whole again. I love God and trust in Him but wonder about how much he can ask some of us to take. I think of that guy who wrote the hymn It Is Well With My Soul after losing his ENTIRE family in a shipwreck. I try to hold on to his perspective and reach for the books on Heaven that some friends and family have so kindly sent to me.
None of this is to say that everything else I've written on this blog isn't true. I still know it is pointless to linger in the "why me?" question. It doesn't mean it doesn't still pop in to my mind. And, I may not be okay today. I might be worse tomorrow. But I know one of these days soon, I will wake up and feel better than I do right now. And in the mean time, I know it is important to embrace what I'm feeling and to let sorrow have its moment.
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