Every month, Matilda's birthday (30 October) hits me harder than the anniversary of her death. And today I think I've just figured out why. On her birth date I think of what should have been - we should have been talking about how quickly three months had gone and on the other hand how it seemed like Matilda had been here forever. Instead each day of these three months has passed slowly and filled with grief and longing. But if she'd lived, today's date would have had no special meaning. November 3 would've just been the day she'd been 4 days old and wouldn't have been something to mark.
What's changed in three months since Matilda's death. I am now intimately familiar with what grief feels like. This is the first big loss in my life. I've always felt lucky because of that before. But I guess all of that 'luck' I felt has just been overtaken by this huge, overwhelming loss.
I'm surprised that only three months I can function 'normally' for the most part. DH and I have been away to a new city and looked around, ate out, and to anyone else, would've looked like a normal, childless couple. So I'd imagine friends and family are probably talking about how 'well' we're doing. But they can't see inside my thoughts and know how much they are still consumed by Matilda and what should've been and fears for the future.
I'm surprised at the resilience of the human spirit. I've read so many stories now and we all seem to keep getting out of bed (mostly) and breathing.
Three months doesn't seem like long in this journey of grief but I'm here and still breathing.
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I feel exactly the same all the time. People must assume that I am ok, because I go to work everyday and do 'normal' things, but like you said, they will never know just how much this has affected us. How much our babies are in our thoughts all the time. Somehow we manage to carry on. I wish our babies were here with us.
ReplyDeletex0x0x
I can relate. I'd never been bereaved before this, not really. It amazes me how exhausting it is. and yes, i look in the mirror and i'm amazed that i still look the same as before.
ReplyDeletethinking of you x
In a way I hate that we "appear to be ok" to the world. That we've supposedly "moved on". That we've gotten "over it". There is no "it" there is a "her" and she will never be "gotten over"... ok that is a LOT of quotation marks!!!
ReplyDeleteI suppose that because this grief is so different, so unique, so specific and so unfamiliar to most people around us that it is easier to keep it inside. People don't know what to make of it. They are entirely uncomfortable with it.
Inside, during many many conversations, i am crying out in agony. Distant smile plastered on my face, appropriate responses being relayed. Appropriate. But not inside.
On the anniversary of 3 months since Sophia's death (December) I found out I was pregnant. Bittersweet is putting it mildly.
That day my CEO chatted to me about his daughters and my face crumpled and he saw and felt awful and awkwardly comforted me.
I was grateful - primarily exceptionally grateful about the pregnancy - but at the same time, the 3 month mark hurt like hell. It seems that 3 months is long. It's no longer "last month I was carrying her.." it's suddenly an entire quarter of a year. A 3rd of a pregnancy between mom and baby.
I'm thinking of you today.
Stupid anniversaries :(
I don't like that fact that I seem OK either. I don't like that other people think I'm coping - when they tell me I'm so strong and brave it makes me feel sick. I don't want to be strong and brave - I want to grieve my daughter who's not here and should be.
ReplyDeleteIt struck me that 1/4 of a year thing too. 3 more of those and it'll be year since she was here.
Maddie x