Learning to Live Again

Shortly after the funeral we started getting calls and texts for other life things. Bills showed up in the mail, our kids/'schedules carried on, my husband's work schedule resumed.... the world kept going and I didn't... I wrote the following in my journal:

"My world has stopped - but no one else's did. How do you keep on functioning in a world that keeps moving when you are at a stand still?"

The best way I can describe it is like I am in a fog. I don't want to be but just like a real fog you don't have a lot of control over it. It is just the reality of being in deep grief I guess.

In all honesty I am not resentful or bitter that other people's worlds have carried on. That's just life. It wasn't their child that died. But I do have a hard time with those who expect the same from me. Just being real here which I promised from the beginning of this process that I would be.

I can tell you the sweetest words I have heard through this process have been,

"Take all the time you need." 

It is like those words breathe life into my soul. They are so gentle and kind and don't carry any expectation of me being a certain way by a certain time. They are words of validation - which is the most healing thing for me now. They also honor the life of my son - which means more to me than anyone could possibly know.

So, day-by-day I have to try to figure it out. Each day is different. Some days are harder than others and it doesn't always make sense. There have been moments where I have been on the phone trying to take care of a business matter and something will catch me. Then the fight will be on to keep those tears away so I am not caught sobbing on the phone to some innocent bystander who has no idea what is going on.

The reality is that my husband and I had 21 weeks from the time we found out we were expecting to fall in love with our little Kanton Jasper. 21 weeks to dream about what our little boy would be like and to plan a future with him in it. We totally adjusted our life and our hearts to the addition of our sweet boy. Then in a millisecond it was all shattered. It absolutely takes time to readjust to the new reality we are now facing - and I can tell you that is not going to happen in just a couple of weeks.

I went through a similar experience after cancer treatment only it was far more on the physical side of things. I expected that the day after I got done with chemo and radiation that I would just be "all better" and I just wasn't. The treatment wrecked my body and it took time to recover. Others had the same expectation of me to be back to 100% right away as well. I heard comments like, "It sure is taking a long time for you to recover," and, "It seems to be taking you longer to recover than other people." None of these types of comments helped with the frustration I was already feeling towards my situation. Notably, every time I heard a comment like those it came from someone who had never gone through any kind of cancer treatment themselves.

It just took me a while to adjust to my "new normal" and I feel like grief is a parallel experience to this on the emotional side.

This time I have given myself permission to grieve the loss of my son - on my table and not anyone else's. As someone described it to my husband it is like having a broken leg. There will be some things we can do right now and some things we can't. That is just the truth of the matter and we pray that people can just continue to have grace for us.