Grief… It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint

Written by Brianna

First I have to admit that I just chuckled to myself as I used a running reference for the title of this post.  Try as I might I have yet to close the gap between myself, and a true runner… ahh a girl can dream.  Anyways I digress, I found this quote on grief the other day, and I found it very fitting…

I have found that whether it’s human nature, or society we have given ourselves very rigid parameters on how, when, where, and why we grieve.  This is especially true with pregnancy/baby loss.  Not only do we hold others to these standards, but we hold ourselves to them as well.  For myself I have found that grieving my babies is a life long journey… full of ups and downs, manageable moments, and intense unexpected emotional outbursts, but this is just me.  If there is one thing I have learned it’s that no two stories are the same, and there is no right or wrong when it comes to enduring one of life’s most personal and tender afflictions.

Where am I at now in this journey?  In order to answer that, I feel like I have to revisit where I was at during my lowest moment. 

I feel like this picture captured some of the rawest of emotions I have ever felt. I am holding our tiny baby Alex for the last time before we tucked her in her casket.  Alex was our second baby daughter we buried in less than a year’s time.  I was devastated.  I was not only grieving the loss of two babies, I was grieving the loss of the very real possibility that we would not have any more living children in this life.  My heart was broken, my stomach ached, my chest was so heavy breathing felt like a chore, and I felt like a shell of my former self. 

Today I am happy to report that I don’t have moments as intense as that anymore.  As people say, time heals all wounds.  “Heals” might be a strong word, but I do believe time makes things easier to live with.  I can also say that I have not been able to check grieve off of life’s to do list.  I still think about Alex and her big sister Demree all the time. When you lose a baby you don’t just lose a baby, which is heart breaking enough, you lose a lifetime.  I think about who they’d be, and how they would fit into our family.  Occasionally I still have emotional outbursts or as I like to call them ugly cries, but I have come to embrace those moments.  Those are the moments that remind me that what I went through was and is real.  It helps me feel close to them.  It helps remind me of the person I have become, and how grateful I am for their influence in my life.  It helps me know that they are never something I will just “get over”, and that’s a good thing… for me. :)