Existential Crisis
Today marks three weeks since I lost my daughter, Kaia, and today, had she survived pregnancy, she would have been a week old. I should be gloriously exhausted, disheveled from lack of sleep, from waking up every other hour to feed her, but instead I’m sitting at home with my mom and my husband (not that there is anything wrong with this), childless and everything around me reminds me day in and day out that my baby did not come home with me.
Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat.
There isn’t much I can say that I’m sure hasn’t already been said by grieving mothers everywhere, but it truly feels as though everything has stopped. I’m at a standstill while the world continues to spin on its axis and people go on living their lives. I’m standing on the outskirts of my own life watching as everything unfolds around me and I am powerless to do anything about any of it. And do you want to know what the messed up part is? I don’t want to do anything about it. At least not right now.
In the last three weeks, I have been tethered to a roller coaster of emotions. One moment I’m at the top of the world, feeling like I can conquer anything, and then in the next moment, I’m falling, my eyes to the ground and indifferent to the feeling that I could hit the bottom at any moment. This is grief. These are the after effects of having lost someone so precious to me, someone I loved more than my own life and still love, and I am doing my best to navigate this path I’ve been led to follow.
One day, maybe not anytime soon, but one day, there will come a time when I look back at this particular season in my life and smile. And maybe even look back at it with thankfulness that at one point in my life I knew what it felt like to feel a love so unconditional and selfless, to have hope, and to be able to dream of a life my heart so fiercely desired. Someday...but not today.
Today, I will grieve and cry and maybe laugh and give a little smile. Today, I hope my words will reach the heart of another grieving mother, another woman who has to walk down a similar path, or another family trying to mend the broken and shattered pieces of their now forever changed lives, and let them know that they are not alone.
Victory of the day: trying to put one foot in front of the other
