Yesterday was hard.
I recently came across the term “grief hangover,” which is the feeling of sluggishness, grogginess, or fogginess following a particularly difficult day with grief. I think I’ve been stuck in a grief hangover for two days now.
I told my therapist on Monday that I feel like I’m beginning to survive a bit better. I still have a knife in my gut; right now, it’s just not twisting as sharply as it was in the immediate days after Eleanora’s death. What I mean is, I’m starting to get used to the fact that she’s not here, and she’s not coming. Do I accept it? Absolutely not. I’m furious at the hand we’ve been dealt. But I know it’s the truth. Still, yesterday, the big gaping wound in my stomach felt as fresh as the day we heard the words, “I’m so, so sorry. I can’t find a heartbeat.” I wandered around aimlessly all day long, and a task that should have taken me half an hour took four hours.
I waited all day for the waterworks, and they finally came when the sun went down.
I cried because her nursery has turned into a loading dock for all the things I can’t bear to look at right now, and that feels like a betrayal to her and her once-perfect room. I cried because I should be holding her in the rocking chair we picked out, and instead all I have to hold onto is a box of mementos—a lock of her curls, a piece of paper with her hand and footprints, an envelope of pictures, and a tiny teddy bear.
I cried because it isn’t fair that I tried so hard the entire pregnancy to keep my daughter safe, and for reasons unknown, she just died, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I cried because I’m terrified to ever be pregnant again, but at the same time, I’m so impatient to be able to hold a living child in my arms. I cried because that impatience also feels like a betrayal to Eleanora.
I cried because I should have a six-week-old today, and because so many families around us are having babies, and ours is never coming. I cried because I’m scared that I can never love another child as much as I love her, and because when we have more children, I’m scared I’ll never be able to let them out of my sight. I’m scared of losing another child. I’m terrified of the ways that grief has already changed me and the way I see the world, and I’m terrified that I will never know true happiness again.
I know that I will. But when you’re in a boxing match with grief and getting the hell beaten out of you, it’s hard to feel like you’ll ever stop bleeding.
Since she died, I’ve been trying to re-curate my Instagram to fit my new life. I no longer want to be barraged with advertisements for diapers and baby clothes. I need a community of other parents who are in my shoes. I need to know I’m not the only person in the universe who has been gut-punched by the loss of a full-term child. In finding that community, I have come across the term “loss mama” several times, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to determine how I feel about that.
(I know that everyone grieves differently and copes differently, and therefore everyone will feel differently about that title. That is perfectly okay. I mean absolutely no offense by what I am about to say.)
I’ve decided that it’s not for me. Yes, my daughter passed away, and yes, that makes me a different kind of mother. That makes our family a different kind of family. But I don’t want my daughter’s death to be the thing that defines her, and I don’t want it to be the thing that defines my motherhood.
Simply put: I don’t want to be thought of as a “loss” mama. I just want to be thought of as a mama. I don’t want to celebrate Bereaved Mother’s Day. I want to celebrate Mother’s Day. I don’t want to be separated from the mothers with living children. I want to be among them. I am still a mother, and I am so proud of that fact that I can hardly stand it.
A sweet friend said something the other day that I really appreciated. To paraphrase, she said that it sounds like I’m getting used to our new normal, which is having a daughter—she just doesn’t live with us. I loved that. For the entire nine months we spent together, Eleanora was very much alive. She had favorite foods, favorite songs, favorite stories. She had dislikes, like beef (at the beginning) and any couch-sitting position that I found comfortable. She had limbs and fingers and toes and lungs and a full head of curly hair.
Just because she’s gone now, just because I don’t get to raise her, doesn’t mean that I don’t get to mother her. I just do so in different ways. I won’t ever change her diapers or comfort her when she cries, but I will talk to her. I will keep her pictures on our coffee table. I will write her name on bathroom stall chalkboards and pay for strangers’ coffee in her name. I will tell her siblings all about her. I will tell her story and shout it from the mountaintops. I will make sure she always has fresh flowers from Daniel and me. I will keep her eucalyptus wall in the nursery. I will carry her spirit in my heart every second of every day for the rest of my life.
And when I get to Heaven, she will be the very first person I look for.
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