Many women ask me, in fact I have often asked myself, when will this pass? When will this pain end? When will I accept what happened to me? When will I forgive myself?
Please take a moment and take a deep breath with me….. I want to point out what acceptance is NOT:
- It is not forgetting about your baby
- It is not replacing your baby
- It is not agreeing what happened to you was ok with you.
These statements can also be used towards the word moving forward. I personally don’t like the term “acceptance” applied to loss of a baby, and will use an alternative definition instead: “Going forward with your life without your baby.”
In many areas of grief we, in essence, experience a full stop in our lives. Many people describe the experience as watching the world go by as though watching a film or through a window. The people are seemingly oblivious that we just totally made a full stop, our world crashed down around us.
Really, moving forward is two-fold, one as a ghost, doing the motions but not feeling them. Eating with no taste, talking a walk but not able to see anything around you. Then there is the second moving forward where we walk away (seemingly) from our cocoon of grief and really start processing and experiencing the world, thinking of other things, noticing the world, hearing the birds, feeling happiness….etc.
Deep in the beginning of the cocoon of grief the birds are there, the flowers are there, but all is painted by the grief itself. I remember never realizing how bright the sun was, how green the trees, how loud the birds. As the pain lessens and the grief goes from being in your face and choking you, to settling in your heart, the world starts to come into focus again. I am nearsighted and without my glasses, I can’t think, I can’t see, and it is a challenge to hear. When I put them on, I feel a part of the world! This cocoon of grief, when I emerged totally and completely changed the way the world was! I stepped into it with my tender wings blinking at the blinding sun and different. I have mentioned before, death, touching death changes you.
I told myself, that if I felt better I would be forgetting her, forgetting my baby. The challenge of letting go of her and taking hold of life was a gradual experience. Each year opened another layer. When I was in labor with her, I too almost died, there was a moment where I was asked by a feeling if I should stay or go. This feeling that I have come to understand as G-D giving me the choice, to die with her that day or stay. An overwhelming experience came over me as I felt grief to leave this world so soon, I had so much I wanted to accomplish! The moment that feeling rose up inside I was back, back in my body, in the pain, in the loss, and alive.
Each step I took forward felt like I was leaving her behind. I feared it until I realized, she colored my steps, she had settled in my very being, my life changed because of her. I was not walking away, she will always be with me.
But how? How was she with me? What part of her was going to stay? Did I want to remember? These questions are very personal but, in hopes to give you support on your journey, I will share a few. Each person processes grief differently, each person goes through the stages and their unique life and experiences affect and color their experience. You may find my process similar in some ways and not in others. Take what helps and leave the rest.
For starters I started HUG in her memory and merit. Helping others and reaching out has helped me process my pain and sadness and turn her loss into a blessing for others. I had little to no help when I went through my loss, and HUG aims to fill that void that I experienced.
I am a different mother. One positive that has come out of my loss is the strong urge to take nothing for granted: To live my life as fully and authentically as I can, to tell my loved ones I love them, and I try to go the extra mile in relationships with friends and family.
Letting myself feel sad on her birthday. Visiting her Kever when I need to. Forgiving myself if I feel jealousy when I see a mother with four children. Being kind with myself when I feel sad. These are seemingly simple but life changing for me.
Forgiving myself. Forgiving G-D. (I will address GD and forgiveness in the next post) I never wanted my baby to die. There is a powerful book in the Tanach, the book of Iyov (Job). In this book, Iyov undergoes tremendous suffering and pain. All his children die and his friends debate with him the meaning of his pain. Learning this Sefer was incredible for me. His friend suggests that maybe it was a punishment. “No,” he insists, it was not a punishment. Maybe it was a zechut (merit) they suggested, no he answered I do not want the merit I want my children. On and on they debated, and each time Iyov says he does not agree. In the end we do not know, we may never know, a small part of me does not even want to know. Letting go of the why is an essential step in forgiveness and acceptance.
Take another deep breath……
Life does not make sense. I wish it did. Prophecy ended 2,300 years ago with Malachi, the last of the prophets. The greatest minds of all time have grappled with these same questions about suffering. They are no less painful.
I offer my blessings to you for a new year of peace and health.
Rachel Shifra Tal CD(DONA), LCCE