Happy

Sweet Mikkie,

These past few days I've been happy. It's the first time since, that I've felt genuinely happy. I've actually been smiling without force and laughing without guilt. I haven't cried for two days. I feel grateful for the great comfort I've felt.

Daddy and I went to see a grief counselor the other night and we feel like this is a good thing for us. She said some interesting things. One thing was that we need to let go, of the guilt,the what if's, the nightmares that haunt me when I think of that excruciatingly painful day and all the details that go with it...let to. Letting go doesn't mean we will lose you, but it will help to heal us.

Then she said a few times about having patience with ourselves, allow ourselves to grieve. Allow and accept it.

That reminds me of this quote I got from your aunt:

"Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You may even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet.

Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps. Not haircuts or manicures or the Atkins Diet.

...Grief doesn't have a plot. It isn't smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end. There is no end."

-Ann Hood (from her book "Comfort: A Journey Through Grief")

I need to be patient with myself when I'm happy and then all the sudden bawl all day long. I've already noticed it going like that.....I guess it's not just me that needs to be patient, it's everyone else. Hopefully they're patient with me because this will be a lifelong process, I will never get over it, but will continue learning and making progress. It's not just crying or sadness that I go back and forth with, but anger. I still find myself getting angry easier or just over nothing.

In a packet about grief that our counselor gave us, the first few paragraphs completely hit home with me.

"Parental grief is boundless. It touches every aspect of a parent's being....when a baby dies, parents grieve for the rest of their lives. Their grief becomes part of them...as time passes, parents come to appreciate that grief is their link to their child, their grief keeps them connected to the child." -Arnold and Gemma, in Corr Et Al. 1996, 50-51

I've found that I cling to my grief, even the pain, because you seem more real to me; I feel that pain and it's a reminder that you were ripped from my life, my arms and how terribly I miss you.

"The parents are faced with a situation in which they must deal both with the grief caused by their child's death and with their inherent need to continue to live their own lives as fully as possible. Thus, bereaved parents must deal with the contradictory burden of wanting to be free of this overwhelming pain and yet needing it as a reminder of the child who died."

That's exactly how I feel. I couldn't have said it better. I feel I am forgetting you when I'm not feeling that pain. I'm scared of forgetting you. I don't want to forget what it was like to have you around. It seems the only way I can 'feel' you is to feel the pain, otherwise I cannot feel you around and that pains me even more than the pain itself.

The only way to get through this is taking it one day at a time, sometimes hour by hour. I cannot rush myself past this grief, it's necessary and important to feel.

I'm looking forward to continue talking with the counselor and hopefully I can be a better person from it, coming out stronger and more understanding.

Thinking of you always.

Love,

your momma

*everytime I say or write or hear 'momma' I can hear your tiny voice repeating it, not stopping until you got my attention, telling me or showing me something small, but obviously important to you. I'm glad I got to hear you say my name so many times. I won't mind if you say it over and over again, I will gladly listen, I just ache to hear it again.