May 14th: If Only...
If only you didn't have such severe hydrocephalus..
If only it hadn't impacted your brain stem...
If only your kidneys were safe...
If only you had been healthy...
If only there had been treatment for you...
If only, if only, if only, you had lived...
...Then it would all be okay.
May 15th: Insights
I have new insight into grief, insight in the fragility of joy and new life, insight into pain and suffering, insight into "finding out who your friends are," insight into so much. I think I would rather have my daughter. I know I would rather have my daughter than all this insight.
May 16th: Joy
Joy was the stick finally having two lines. Joy was hearing "I see a heartbeat." Joy was hearing, "It's a girl!" Joy was announcing her name. Joy was showering her with love. Joy was finally holding her in my arms. Joy was seeing Joe look at Mira the first time. Joy was making every memory we could in the hospital. Joy is hearing all the ways Mira touched the lives of others. Joy is hearing someone else speak her name. Joy is having a friend to brings her up in conversation without pity or awkwardness. Joy is knowing she is happy and loved. Joy is knowing I will see her again. Joy is everywhere she ever was.
May 17th: On Coming Alive
Coming alive again after losing Mira has been a slow, hard process. I have learned you don't get to just wait for grief and pain to pass you have to actually put hard work into the healing process. When Mira first died, for weeks I felt numb and as if I were floating. Like everything around me was moving but I was just floating on the side watching. It's hard to explain, but I am sure anyone who has faced a serious trauma can relate. I was there, but I wasn't. I worked on projects for Mira as time went on, but I was still only half there, it wasn't that I was necessarily avoiding processing things, but you can't just face it full on all at once, I think it would kill you. After 8 weeks I returned to work. That first day walking back in I still felt so lost and confused, everything was the same, but everything was so different. I wasn't all back. I slowly got back into the day to day of working, my memory no good, my concentration terrible, and my ability to process thing slow, it was hard, hard work that was usually fun for me. I kept coming out of the fog slowly as my brain backed off of trying to protect me.
Around April (after about 3 months) I felt I was totally out of the "fog." It was an important step in healing, but a horribly painful one. The reality of the rest of my life without my daughter became clear. It wasn't just the pain of now. It was the pain of that missing piece being there for the rest of my life. I would only be whole again in Heaven. That is when the overwhelming desire to just be with her now hit. I wished I had died with her. I wished it was 1950 and ultrasounds were not routine, and Mira's birth defects were never caught and I had gone into labor naturally and without the use of a c-section, died from the complications. I fought through this time period. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I did. I reminded myself about the difference in wanting to be dead and wanting to harm yourself, and made sure I did not cross that (sometimes gray) line, and ask for help when I was too close to it. Time marched on. April to the end of May was some of the very worst, between the fog being gone, my birthday, Easter, and mother's Day, that time was just awful. Then during the summer, I learned I had PTSD and started treatment, I took back some control and took some positive steps. The pain was still there, but I was fighting. I was ready to fight (some days).
During the fall and into winter I went deeper into addressing my grief and trauma. It was often overwhelming, but I kept alive the desire to fight to heal, to honor my Mira. Her first birthday into Christmas brough lots of emotional pain and constant physical ache of missing Mira with my whole being. But I kept fighting, I kept working on healing. I got stronger and pushed harder to advocate for myself and my girl. January and February brought continued growth and healing, while still struggling with pain. This April to end of May time has been a time of significant struggle again, as there are so many reminders of where I was last year and the deep dark pain of that time. I still feel the pain, but it is bearable instead of suffocating. There are days I feel I am drowning and want to beg for help, but there are more days where my head is above water. It still hurts, it always hurts, even on the good days. I mean, even if your head is above the waves, constantly treading water is still exhausting! But I have come alive in the sense that though I long to be with my daughter, I am dedicated to fighting for continued healing and want to live life as I wait to join her. I am slowly coming alive again.
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