Heavenly greeting

Only five months ago, on the night of July 28^th I went to bed a proud mother of 3. The next morning, I woke up to an impossible reality. I suddenly had more babies in heaven than I do on Earth. Before Aspen was born, I had two miscarriages. It always annoyed me when people normalized miscarriage. As if to assume that just because it is common, it must not be devastating. We all die eventually, death is common, it’s the about the only thing certain in this life, we will all die one day. Does that fact make it less tragic when a loved one goes? Obviously not. Common doesn’t equate to less tragic. I always wondered why God allowed that to happen to me, and so many others. But once Aspen was born, and 12 quick months later Cambria was born, I thought less and less about the babies I miscarried. Weeks after I lost Eden, I had a moment where I pictured my miscarried babies greeting Eden into Heaven. Eden left behind two sisters on Earth, only to meet 2 more siblings in heaven. I guess that is reason enough.

Fear

My friend sent me a voice note this week. She confessed that she had not been reading these posts and chalked it up to being afraid. “I think I was just scared,” she admitted. Immediately I thought, “Yes, what an honest remark.” I am scared too! I don’t want to face it, so of course those who love us don’t want to either. No one wants to read to understand the depths of their loved one’s suffering. I still can’t believe anyone reads this blog. It takes guts, so thank you.

Her remark fit in perfectly with my thoughts this week. I read something C.S. Lewis wrote.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

What a simple but profound statement. My grief resembles fear in many ways. I don’t blame my friends for avoiding this pain. I do it every day. Grief is a scary, ugly pit. I feel like I am being dragged in, kicking and screaming. I feel like it will swallow me up. I am afraid it will affect my marriage and the way I mother my girls. I am scared I will lose a part of me. More than I’ve already lost. When I have said in recent posts, that I am defending my right to be sad – “Just let me have my sorrow and sadness.” I am now finding I may be trying to convince myself of that fact. Part of me wants to feel the weight of this, curl in a ball and cry for my loss, and another part of me wants to carry on and skip that descent into hard grief.

In reality, however, if I avoid properly grieving my daughter, I am at higher risk of it affecting my marriage and motherhood. It’s just so scary. I am again reminded of the analogy of the butterfly and cocoon I wrote about when remembering Eden’s burial. We released butterflies and it dawned on me that butterflies must fight to gain freedom. The dark and suffocating cocoon that surrounds them is the challenge, if you can build up your strength in here and break free, you will be strong enough to conquer what is on the outside.

C.S. Lewis doesn’t say grief is scary, he said it feels the same as fear. Fear is discomfort, a lack of control, the fluttering uneasiness in the pit of your stomach. Grief and fear occupy similar places in my physical body.  It is unsettling, and it seems to follow me everywhere.

Time

Aspen found an hourglass the other day and asked what it was. I explained that it was a timer and showed her how it worked. She thought timers were only on smartphones, so this was fascinating. It got me thinking about time.

What a year. So much given, so much taken away. I am unsure of how I feel about leaving this year behind. It is the year of Eden. Her birth year. They say time heals, but right now time is cruel. It carries me further and further away from my baby. In the original book by James Berrie, Peter Pan- the boy who never grows up, throws Hook’s severed hand to the crocodile. Throughout the novel the croc is a symbolize of time. If you recall the Disney movie, Hook is terrified of the tick-tocking crocodile. And in the book, he laments about the beast having a taste of him and is now determined to finish him off piece by piece, until there is nothing left of him. Isn’t that how we all feel about what time does to us? Time is the real enemy in this book, not a silly pirate. I feel like I am being chased down by a similar tick-tock. The time I had with Eden is slipping further away, but every second forward it a step closer to when we are reunited. This should give me comfort, but it doesn’t.

(If you haven’t read my blog post called “Disjointed” from October 27th, my final thought is about the Never Not Broken goddess, Akhilandeshvari. Her story goes perfectly with this thought. She has the power to falling apart- utterly broken- only to come back together again, stronger than ever. She isn’t encumbered by fear, this is symbolized by her choice of transportation, a crocodile. She harnesses fear (the croc) and uses it to propel herself forward.)

Time is a funny thing. I cannot believe that it has been five months since Eden left our world. However, the feelings are equally split. It has been the longest five months of my life, it has been the speediest five months of my life. I feel like I don’t remember a time where I didn’t feel the weight of grief – like it has been with me forever. Yet, I feel like I just brought her into this world yesterday. And moments like this afternoon, when I grab a purse out of my closet that I haven’t used in a few months, only to find a size 1 diaper in it, time messes with my head all over again. How long has this been here?! Didn’t I just buy a box of these?

Like the never not broken goddess, I need to stop running from the time crocodile that I fear, and learn to harness, embrace it, allowing me to propel forward. Weather I like it or not, this year will pass like all the rest, and a new one lay before us. All I know about this upcoming year, is that I have no control over what may come.

To quote one of my favorite movies, Moulin Rouge.

Come what may.