grieving with guinever

I’ve discovered that grief can be compared to pregnancy and labor.

Instead of one contraction at a time, it’s one moment of grief at a time. Just like a woman’s water breaks without warning, a mother’s tears flow at moments unexpected. It’s the big things that I know are coming and can prepare for that are easier to handle than the little things that happen without warning. Seeing a little girl with blond hair like my daughter had. Seeing a toddler near the street. Watching my infant daughter blossom into a toddler and start doing the things her older sister used to do. Doing girlie things her older brothers never did. Driving down the road and having to stop for a funeral procession. Seeing her birthday printed in the church bulletin. These are the things that have been hard.

A year ago, I never would have imagined that I’d be visiting the cemetery so often this past year. Last March, my 2-year-old daughter died suddenly and unexpectedly. I find solace in walking among the stones and beautiful flowers, a place to connect with other mothers as well. I sit in the dirt and share stories with others who have lost their babies.

In the couple days after Abby’s death, I was numb and not crying like my husband and sons and others around me were crying. I wondered when my sobbing would start. I was thankful for an empty house when my desperate, loud cries finally burst forth. I found a little girl charm that my husband had given me after our daughter was born. I shouted and screamed for her to come back to me. Just like my cries were primal during childbirth, so they were again. But this time instead of pushing her out of me so I could take her in my arms, I was pushing her down, down into the ground and pushing her out of my arms into Jesus’ arms, releasing her spirit up, up to heaven. I had birthed her 2 years ago and now I had deathed her. This release was altogether emotional, physical and spiritual.

It is said that anniversaries and birthdays are hard days. People who haven’t experienced the death of someone close to them can’t really relate. After all, it’s only another day on the calendar, right? Three months after my daughter’s death was particularly hard on me. Being away from home made it particularly hard because I couldn’t go to my quiet place – the cemetery. My husband took me to a cemetery 850 miles away from home and yet I still found comfort. Three months. A quarter of a year. A trimester. I was reminded of my sweet baby and the womb time.

As the six-month anniversary approached, I started to break down emotionally. My thoughts were six months would turn into a year, which would slip to two years and before I knew it, I would have spent more time without her than I had with her. That thought was unbearable to me. And I sobbed. Repeatedly. For the first time since two days after her death, my crying was body intensive. Again I compared my grief to labor. I realized that I had been “putzing” through early grief for months. I had moments far apart that weren’t too hard. Once in awhile, I would have a bad one, but I always had time to regroup before the next moment of grief would wash all over me. Now, I was in hard labor grief, in and out of transition. I was overwhelmed and needed to be left alone, yet fully supported.

Last week, I spent several hours with my Grandmother when she was in hospice care before she died. Now I am preparing to go to her funeral. A few days after that will be my daughter’s birthday, followed by the anniversary of her death. I am thankful for friends and family who want to surround me on those days. Just like I’ve always taken one contraction at a time during labor, I need to remember to take one day at a time, one moment of grief at a time. This transition will end.

~written February 2006

read “grief is like labor” revisited one year later