Being Buried Quite Alive Now

Tomorrow will mark a month since we found out that Elsa passed. The 14th is a month since I delivered her sleeping.

In a month I have aged 20 years. In a month I learned to permanently shelve dreams and hopes. In a month I learned how to put on a mask to survive Life. In a month I have mastered how to stand in this hurricane of rage and sorrow, while watching the world carry on without my baby.

One month ago I learned how to say hello and goodbye to a baby I loved. One month ago I felt myself rip into pieces and burned by my grief. One month ago I wondered how I was going to breathe and stay alive when everything in me screamed for death.

Today I still wish to hold my baby in my dreams. I still pray to see her while I sleep so that I know her existence was real. I still am filled w grief and pain. I still have moments where everything is drowned out by tears and longing. I still can't look at babies for more than a fleeting glimpse. I definitely can't hear babies crying when my own baby made no sound as she entered this world.

I seek to fill my voids with the fleeting company of people I love. But I can't let them linger too long bc then I will want to open up. And to open up would mean to cry.

I try not to label myself by the misery I experience, but that is all that fills me. "It gets easier..." What they left out is that carrying the pain gets easier, not experiencing the pain. There are days that I feel like I'm being buried under the weight of my emotions.

I will spend Elsa's One-Month-Birthday outside. Where I will feel her gentle spirit in the breeze. Where I will feel her touch in the rays of sunshine. Where I will feel her little embrace in the grass.

Burst Apart

Someone told me that Elsa was in a "better place with God." That line, out of the many I have heard, pissed me off.

I know, words are hard to come by when faced w another person's grief. I'm also not an atheist but neither am I Christian. Somewhere in between.

To be told that my baby is in a better place is a slap in the face. What better place is there but in your mommy's arms, surrounded by people who love you? Why did I not deserve to hold my beautiful Elsa? What gives God/Jesus/Whoever more of a right to "have" her than me? In my eyes, no one.

She was my (and Gage's) baby. She was a baby that I grew inside of me. I gave her my blood. Nothing will ever feel the void in me and it is insulting to hear someone state a fact that she is in a "better" place.

Late last week, a customer asked me about my belly and when I was due. The first time he asked about my pregnancy (I was wearing a sweater covering my midsection), I tried to ignore it. He kept going and finally I had to walk away. The panic attack came rolling in my chest. I couldn't breathe. All I knew was pain. It felt like i was hearing the ultrasound technician say "I'm so sorry, there is no heart beat." I was thrust back to May 13th.

A few days before then, a customer came in with a tiny little baby. So perfectly newborn and precious. I enjoyed looking at her and felt happiness. Then I grabbed one of her little feet. That was my undoing. I remembered suddenly that I won't be holding Elsa's feet. That I wont ever get to enjoy her soft snuggles and beautiful coos. Instead I'm left w a small container of ashes. It feels like my heart was w her when she was cremated.

I can enjoy my days. I allow myself to be distracted in the flow of life. I have began to master carrying the weight of my grief. I don't look the part of a mother who has had to say hello and goodbye in the same breath. In this moment, the anger I have to people's well meaning words, though irrational, is cathartic in a sense.