Ashamed and Hiding My Grief

Before I start to write what I actually want this blog post to be about, I need to preface it by sharing some information about what's been going on in our lives this past week (in a sense, this might become 2 posts in 1). Last weekend we learned that Josh's grandpa, Opa, had a bad fall and as a result was in the hospital. After a couple of days in the hospital, Opa passed away. This past week I was supposed to be down in Alabama celebrating my husband's graduation from flight school where I was going to go to "Family Day," take some pictures inside of a Black Hawk (the helicopter he flies), pin his wings on him, and have lots of photo ops with him in his dress blues. However, at the news of Opa's passing, plans changed obviously, as family comes first. So instead, this week we drove up to IL to be with family and attend his grandpa's funeral service.

Ironically, we found ourselves doing the same thing we were going a little over a year ago at this time. This year we were going home because Opa passed away. Last year we were going home because Hailey passed away. This year we drove through a snowstorm making our way home. Last year we drove through a snowstorm making our way home. And, both services just happened to be at the same funeral home. A little over a year later, and I felt like I was almost reliving what we had done a year ago with Hailey. I knew that this week was going to be a hard one.

And now for what this post is really about...

I am continuing to see that while I want to say I'm handling my grief over losing Hailey well, I'm really not. Every now and then a little light is brought to the situation and my eyes are opened to what I'm really doing. I see that I'm closing myself off, I'm not giving myself permission to grieve and feel the way I feel, I'm not communicating my grief or the related sadness that I feel with anyone, when I feel like crying, I don't allow it. I'm not sure why I've become this way. I know I've written about this a little not too long ago, but I guess I feel like I don't want to burden others with my grief, and I don't want to share it with anyone because no one understands. Not to mention, it's been a little over a year since Hailey died, and for some reason I feel like I shouldn't grieve and feel like I do anymore because of that.

This week I continued that path of trying to bury my grief deep inside and try to 'handle' it on my own, and it was probably the worst thing I could have done for myself.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that one of the greatest struggles I've had since losing Hailey is handling being around other mothers with their children. I desperately want to overcome this struggle. It's something that I really hate about myself and that I beat myself up over, especially now, a year later. I want so badly to be around other mothers and their babies and feel nothing but happy for them and to share in their joy, but I can't. Even now, over a year later, I can't. And I hate that I can't. Instead, I look at mothers with their babies and look at them with sorrow feeling my broken heart intensified. I see the mothers and the babies and feel a deep ache of missing Hailey. I see a mother holding her baby in her arms, and all I can think about is how I want to be her. I want to hold my baby in my arms again. It's not even so much that I want to trade places with them or that I'm jealous of what they have because it reminds me of what I lost, but it's that I want to be sharing that moment with them. I want to be there as a mother with her child too. I want to have everyone ooh and ahh over my baby too. I want everyone to know that I was once a mother too. I'm tired of everyone I meet assuming this pregnancy is my first, that I never had a daughter.

People think being a mother is one of the hardest jobs there is. And it's true, I know. But I almost think being a mother of child who is dead is the hardest. How can anyone do it?

So anyway, the past year I've avoided and been in a lot of situations where I've been around mothers and their babies. I'd made a lot of progress and had been doing better at being around them and not feeling so much of my grief. But it's still hard.

I was recently in a situation where I was with all mothers and their young children. I was the only one without a child there. It wasn't that bad, but every moment I thought about Hailey and how I wished she were there with me... how I wished I was part of what they all were. And it made me wonder, will I always feel this way? Whenever I'm in a room with mothers and their children, will I always think of how my child isn't there? Will it always awaken the void that's in my life? I'm starting to think this is something that will be there forever; something that I need to learn how to get used to and stop feeling sorry for myself that things are the way they are. But even though that situation was hard, I felt 'okay.' Again, just feeling like this is something I need to get used to.

However, there was another situation I was recently in where I pushed myself too far. The day before Opa's funeral service this week, we went and visited some dear friends and their new baby girl. Before going, I had some reservations, but didn't communicate them with my husband. I feared the grief and sorrow it might stir up for me, especially considering the timing, with the whole trip being reminiscent of coming home because of our daughter's death and with preparing to face the death of another loved one the next day. But I didn't say anything about it. It was an example of me trying to bury my true feelings because I was ashamed of them. I feared that being in the situation with their new baby would trigger feelings of my loss and create that deeply unbearable ache of missing my own baby. But I wanted to pretend like I was no longer 'that' person in my grief. Like I said before, I so desperately wanted to be 'okay' and joyous at meeting their baby girl. And after all, it's been a year, I shouldn't feel this way anymore... So we went.

At first it was okay, and it was like all the other moments I've spent with new families since my own was broken... I do okay but think of Hailey the entire time. The moment grew harder for me when I learned that she was 5 weeks old. All I could think about was our daughter died when she was 5 weeks old. Their daughter is reaching milestones that Hailey never reached. Their daughter weighed 10 lbs, Hailey weighed 5 lbs. My grief started to hit pretty hard, but I did my best to push it aside and not let it show, because after all, even I didn't want to acknowledge that it was there. And then the moment became the hardest it could have been for me; when our friend asked me if I wanted to hold the baby before we left. I felt frozen. I was hoping to not have to be confronted with that option at all. But there I was, confronted with my grief. My own struggle that no one else knew was even going on. I looked into our friend's eyes, smiling, but hesitating, hoping she or someone would notice my look or hesitation and give me an out, but it didn't happen. I couldn't say no. What kind of person would I have been if I said no? I wanted to be the person who said yes. I didn't want to be the person, a year later, who still can't hold a baby without feeling overwhelmed by grief.

It was the first time around other people where I actually thought I might cry, but I didn't let myself, and I reluctantly said, "Sure." And before I knew it, I was holding a 5 week old little girl in my arms. Even now, I have no idea how I managed not to cry. This was the first time I'd held a baby since I'd held my own. And not only was this the first time I'd held another baby, the baby just happened to be a girl and as old as my little girl had been when she died.

After we left their house, we immediately went to be with my husband's family, so I really had no time to address my emotions, which was good for the side of me that always wanted to bury my true feelings away. But that night, in bed, the tears came. I couldn't force them away. And in the release of one single tear, everything inside of me broke down. All the walls I've built inside of myself that gave me the facade of being 'okay' in my grief broke down. Like I've shared before, for some reason I don't even like to cry in front of my husband anymore, and so I ran to the bathroom and broke down. I hadn't felt that kind of grief in a long time. It was the kind that was so painful it literally felt unbearable, like I wanted to rip my chest open, like I felt a million pounds of weight were crushing down on me. I cried and cried until I had such a bad headache I couldn't cry one more tear. The next morning, the morning of Opa's funeral service, I woke up crying. This time, I opened up to my husband.

I have to say I know our friends meant no harm in asking me to hold their little girl. And I really hope that if they read this post they won't feel guilty or bad or anything about what happened. It's my own fault. I should have been honest with what I was feeling and not ashamed of it. As much as I wanted it, I wasn't ready to hold another baby yet, and I should have just politely passed on the opportunity to hold their little girl. A part of me that hoped that taking the step of holding a baby would somehow magically help me overcome some of my grief and those types of situations, but it didn't. It was too soon and it did more harm than good for me. And one of the reasons it's so hard in these situations, is because I don't want the people who are involved to take anything personal or to take anything as me not loving them or their children or thinking I'm not happy for them. I am happy for them. I love them and their little girl. Unfortunately, I'm still in a place where my grief interferes with how I want things to be. But again, it's a struggle because I'm not sure anyone understands.

And that's actually another struggle. At some point, I need to come to terms with the fact that no one will ever understand what I went through and what I go through on a day to day basis, and I need to not be angry that they don't understand. I also need to realize if I want any kind of understanding  from others, I need to be more open with what it is that I'm feeling and going through.

All in all, I learned a lot about myself this week. I learned I need to communicate better and more often. I learned that just because one year has passed that things don't suddenly become easier or better with my grief. I learned that trying to bury things inside and build walls and try to carry this burden of my grief by myself is an absolutely terrible idea. I need to get over feeling guilty and ashamed with how I feel and allow others to have the chance to understand, love, and even help me with what it is that I'm going through. I fear in doing so that I'll become the burden of others, but I know deep down this isn't true. God designed us to rejoice together and mourn together, and I not only need to release my burdens and struggles to him, but I need to share them with others too.

And that's why I wrote this blog post. It wasn't easy for me to write and share, but as silly as it is, writing about how I feel is therapeutic for me. It's another way of being honest with myself and how I feel. It's an easy way for me to open up and not keep things to myself.