Grief's Journey

I am on a journey. If you had asked me to take this journey I would have clearly and quickly declined. I wasn't packed or prepared, this journey just took off. It began with the words..."I am sorry but Seth has passed away......and the rest of words trailed off. The flight attendant must have been telling me what to do in case of an emergency but I didn't hear what she had to say. And truthfully, the only way off of this journey is to go through it.

In the beginning, the journey was really all a blur. I was so surprised, shocked, numb yet full of some sort of pain I did not yet recognize. Perhaps this is grief I told myself. My baby is dead. I start to cry. I am going to grieve. I cry again. It can't possibly last. I understand now that all grief was offering me was the cruel ability to actually leave the hospital without my son. It forced me to leave him behind. It allowed me to make funeral arrangements. It gave me the energy to return to my life. I thought the grief would let me return home without it. It let me go home but insisted that I take it with me.

I thought I understood grief those first few weeks. I knew I didn't like it. It made me sad. It made me cry. It made me feel nothing at all. It made me zone off into another place. I tried going to sleep assuming that I could somehow make it through the journey quicker. But I would just wake up and it was night. What was this place? All I knew was it was dark and full of pain. I was determined not to stay here. I forced myself up in the morning. I tried to make the best of this place.

But grief just won't let me be. It reminds me over and over and over again of what I have lost. I try to pretend it is all a dream. I could not have possibly carried a baby to term to have him pass away at the end. There must be some mistake. Maybe I was never really pregnant. Maybe Seth didn't really exist. No one else knew him like I knew him. Maybe I imagined it all. I try sharing with my family and friends. I showed them photos of this cute little baby with ten fingers and ten toes. Look, see how precious. He is my beautiful boy. Look he even looks like Lydia and maybe little like Adam or Caleb. Oh and doesn't he look like his Daddy? I make sure they know he is real. I talk about him, enjoy him the only way I could now.

Then from out of no where the dreaming, the denial came to a hault and grief laughed in my face. It had a new destination in mind. REALITY. My grief forced me to really look at the pictures of my baby. I saw death. It hit me hard. I could barely breath. I felt so anxious.  Reality has brought with it  extreme loneliness and intense darkness. I feel so low that I can't even see the world the same.

The journey is far from over...but I need a break from this grief.