This post won’t benefit or be relevant for all but it is close to my heart. It doesn’t encompass a “how to” or have some major epiphany at the end.
This post is about losing and winning simultaneously if there was ever a thing. It is a post about goodness and grief.
I am 3.5 months postpartum, I’ve recently went back to work, Charli has started school, and I am possibly on the other side of most of my postpartum anxiety. But a dreadful occasion was on the horizon. My deceased mother’s birthday and the anniversary of her passing was fast approaching. I could feel “it” sitting in the pit of my gut.
I lay awake in the days leading up to dates that are forever carved in the bark of my brain. I wonder of all the things I’d ask and tell. I miss the introduction to my baby that will never happen. I mull over the questions I’d ask.
…How did I sleep at night as a baby? Did I laugh or cry a lot? What soothed me? What scared me? When did I eat my first solid food? Is Charli’s budding personality familiar? Does she remind you of me at all? How is it to meet your first granddaughter?
Sadness tries to overtake me but at 6am, my baby, (with her mostly predictable schedule) does what she does every morning. She stirs and giggles and grunts until I look into her bassinet and scoop her up to lay her next to me for the last two hours of rest. She offers me happiness. She offers me goodness and grief.
Having lost someone and birthed someone has proven to be an interested feat. Theres a thirst and a quenching that is quite difficult to put into words.
As the dreadful dates pass, the yearning stays behind and a fear emerges in the darkness. I would never want my daughter to experience this paradoxical feeling. I never want her to experience grief but I know it is out of my control for I am not immortal.