What It's Like

We are out on a walk enjoying the beautiful Spring weather.  The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, we hear the birds chirping and we are all happy.  Right in that moment, we are happy.  The children are singing and laughing and I am enjoying them.

Then I see it.  A little girl, about 9 years old pushing her baby sister in a stroller.  My heart sinks and instantly I am reminded of what I don't have.  I am reminded of what my life could have been like, should have been like, was supposed to be like.  And in that instant, I am hurt to the core and want to sit down and sob.

It comes out of nowhere this grief.  When I least expect it, I will be knocked onto my butt for days to come, all from seeing a girl who is just a wee older than Emma would be.  Seeing a glimpse of what my life was going to be like.

After that I am super sensitive to everything.  I can't focus on the children that are here because in that moment, I am so wrapped up in the one that is gone.  I think back to the several people who came up to me at CBC just to tell me they couldn't come to my panel on Grief.  They just can't handle it, can't sit through it, they can't listen to the stories and imagine themselves in it.  After a while I started to think, "You can't handle listening to it? Try living it".

I will never be done grieving. I will always have an ache, an emptiness that nothing but her will fill.  I heard someone say that grief shouldn't define who you are, but it does.  Only those who have never experienced grief in a very real way can say that it shouldn't define who you are.  It does define who we are because it is something we live with everyday and has changed us to the point where we often don't recognize that person in the mirror.

I will never stop grieving.  I still function everyday.  My children know I love them and that I am here for them at all times.  But sometimes I just need to sit and cry and miss and remember and be a little selfish with my broken heart.