The Gift of Grief

Since having a baby our life has been so preoccupied with diapers, barf, crying, soothing and no sleep that thinking of Jane has no longer been at the front of my thoughts all day, every day. In fact sometimes at the end of the day I will realize I only thought of her once or twice that whole day. You would think that would be a good thing. That it means having a baby has been healing and we can move on.. But it has actually been a hard adjustment. 

Last night, while driving to Costco, a song came on and grief hit me hard. I pulled over and a good-long-ugly cry. It felt good to have her near me again. To know she is still there and to know that I can still mourn her absence. That's when I realized what a gift grief is. 

As I have said in past blog posts, thinking of her constantly keeps her alive in our hearts and minds. It means that she was here, real and tangible. Grieving over her being gone, while so difficult, meant she lived and we loved. 

That may sound strange, masochistic maybe, and it is a complicated feeling that I have struggled to understand within myself let alone explain it to others. There is a quote that I have heard many versions of but basically it says, "To grieve means there was love. The only way to not feel grief is to not have loved."

 

I didn't understand that quote quite like I do now. Grieving is our physical way of showing and feeling love for a person lost. It is our bodies intense reaction to the heart-and-soul breaking loss of a loved one. It is painful, physically painful. But that pain is proof of love. 

I miss the heartache. The constant thoughts of Jane, happy and sad. I miss feeling her loss. 

Maybe a new baby meant we can move on and be happy again. But I am not ready to move on. I want to have the baby in my arms and Jane in my mind. Maybe that's asking to have my cake and eat it too. I am sure that either way, grieving of happy, Jane is near. So maybe that means it's okay to move on.

 This is new territory and I don't really know what the best direction is. It is a difficult place to be- stuck feeling like I need to move on but not wanting to just yet.