Putting on a brave face, isn’t brave. It’s acting. I am slowly noticing that it takes an extraordinary amount of vulnerability and bravery for me to show my real emotions. I am used to hearing the word brave referenced when someone denies their feelings, “staying strong.” “Holding it together”. I couldn’t disagree more. That, for me is denial and cowardice. And I do it all the time.

Lately I have been thinking about being productive. It was a big shift becoming a mother. In any other career there are multiple ways of tracking success. How much you sell, how much you make, how many clients you have, and continually ticking things off your lists. You can easily begin and conclude a task, achieving a sense of accomplishment.

None of that exists in motherhood. You are sleepy, sick, stretched and sober for 9 months. Labor and delivery (I guess there is a sense of accomplishment there). Then you sacrifice sleep and sanity for months and years over this precious life. No matter how much you clean, the house is never perfect. No matter how many loads of laundry you do, there is always something in the hamper. No matter how much you cook, someone is always hungry. No matter how many activities and events you set up or go to, someone is always whining or bored. From 530am to 730pm is it all hands-on deck, and when they are finally down for the night you have nothing to show for all your hard hard (hard) work.

A woman at the indoor play place this week wore a shirt that said, “As long as they are alive at the end of the day, I’ve done my job”. You can imagine my desire to boot her into the ballpit.

One day, I like to think that I will watch my kids do something extraordinary and think, YES! All my hard work did pay off! But at 2 & 3 years old, my victories are very small. That is precisely why as moms, we need to celebrate even the smallest of victories. “Yay! You didn’t drop your smoothy all over the floor this morning!” “Did you open that cheese string all by yourself!? Way to go!!” “I see you put your coat and boots away in their proper places! Someone is getting chocolate chips in their pancakes!!!”

Motherhood doesn’t always feel productive, and I am starting to learn that grief doesn’t feel very productive either. If I spend a few hours (about all I can handle) crying, looking at Eden’s photos and videos, I don’t feel like I have gotten any further along in my grief journey. I don’t know why I expected for that to be the goal. I guess I am always looking for ways to make myself feel better. Maybe if I focus on this, maybe if I ignore that, maybe if I read this or listen to that, or buy this and eat that. It might be helping, but nothing makes me feel better. I am learning to accept that my goal isn’t to feel better. Not yet at least.

In counseling I decided I needed a new word for properly and intentionally grieving Eden. I know that it won’t be productive, so I need another incentive. My counselor said,

“How about honouring”.

I like it.

Any time I take a moment to think about Eden, acknowledge her or mourn her, it really is my way of honouring her. There doesn’t have to be an end game, honouring someone isn’t productive. Honouring Eden is respecting the impact she had on my heart, and more often than not, that will make me cry. Any joy connected to her memory is almost immediately followed with sorrow. I’m not sure that will ever change. And I feel like that is ok. My sorrow honours her.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief –Aeschylus

When I hear comments that are intended to make me feel better, I can poke holes in almost all of them. Not because I am pessimistic, I am just being realistic. Lately it’s the faith-based ones. I know Eden is in heaven. That has never been a concern. It is about the only thing I am confident about in this world. But when I am very thoughtfully and well intendedly reminded that she is happier in heaven, I don’t know what to do with that. Yes, obviously she is at peace and made whole and all that. But with that logic, should all my kids just ‘go to heaven’, if they will be so much happier there?

It does give me peace knowing where Eden is, but I was never worried about where her soul would end up. I am more concerned with the fact that I won’t get the chance to be her mom. That is the dagger to the heart. It was all taken from me. Until someone can tell me how I can mother her the way I get to mother my other daughters, I don’t think any condolences will make me feel better. And like I said earlier, feeling better isn’t the goal right now.

I am thinking back to those first weeks after her death. Most people really did just grieve with me. There wasn’t anything anyone could say. In fact, that is what people would say, “There are no words’. That was going to be the name of this blog. I heard it over and over. And it’s true. You couldn’t say, “She isn’t in pain anymore” because she wasn’t sick. You couldn’t say, “It was her time” because it seemed impossible to accept that at 3 months.

There are simply no words.

And that’s ok.