Christmas again

Another Christmas has come and gone with an incomplete family.  This time with two pieces missing.  This year was particularly hard given the fact that there should have been new baby gifts under the tree for the little guy we should be still anxiously awaiting.  Instead, there is just bitterness, anger and grief.  I am mad that I don't get my happy ending, mad that I now dread a holiday I used to love and mad that there is noting I can do about it.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the faces of my two little guys when they realized Santa had come this morning.  Sawyer was so excited to realize that Santa is in fact real and magical.  There was so much joy and laughter in our home as he tore through his stocking and then his brothers and handed out gifts at whirlwind speed.   It just seems that there is never quite enough Christmas joy to dilute my Christmas grief.

Christmas is supposed to be such a joyous time, especially when you have kids to share it with.  There is nothing quite like seeing the magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child.  The past two year though, the magic has been a lot harder to find.  No matter how hard I try to feel the Christmas magic, no matter how much I throw myself into my kids and our Christmas traditions, I just can't seem to get back the old love I used to have for this season.  It is a time when everyone is proudly posting beautiful pictures of their beautiful children or big pregnant bellies.  Again, please do not misunderstand, I am beyond happy for them.  In fact, I very much envy their unimpeded holiday cheer.  I would love to be back in their version of Christmas, where the holiday is fun, exciting and magical.  In my world though, at least for now, it is yet another reminded that I will never again be able to celebrate with my whole family.  I will never get to see Addy or Charlie's faces on Christmas morning, take their picture on Santa's lap or watch them open their first gift.  Sawyer and Liam will never get to share Christmas traditions with their brother and sister and that is a fact that sucks all of the joy out of Christmas for me.  

I used to love Christmas, everything about it.  I looked forward to the magic and excitement of it every year as a kid, and even as an adult, I loved the craziness of Black Friday shopping and carrying on my childhood traditions with my own children.  This year, I was ready to take down the tree by 11:00.  It is all just too hard to shoulder this year and my usually strong facade has failed me horribly today.  After several full on meltdowns I am ready to call it quits with Christmas, at least for this year.   I am very hopeful that my Christmas spirit will return someday, and I will continue to pretend, for the sake of my living children until, hopefully, one day it does.  My greatest fear is that all of my pain will ruin this season for them, that I will not hide my newfound hatred of the holidays well enough.  I have so many wonderful memories of Christmas  and they deserve that as well.   As for this year though, I will retreat to my room with far too many sugar cookies and a rather large glass of wine to watch sappy reruns until Christmas is over.  May all of you celebrating with your children today realize just how very blessed you are.  To those of you grieving your tiny missing pieces along with me, I send you all of my love and wish you returned Christmas spirit and as much holiday joy as you can manage so squeeze from the season.

The Journey

Today, after hearing the news that an acquaintance of mine lost her husband after a long battle with cancer, I began to think about grief.  My response to the news of the death of a man I barely knew was not what I expected.  I have known this woman in a "quick greeting when you meet at community events" capacity and yet the news of her loss touched me deeply.  She posted a comment about grief and how hers had "just begun"  and I couldn't help but be touched, not only because she is obviously hurting but because I vividly remember being in that stage of grief.  I hope to never know the pain of losing my spouse, but I do understand that profound kind of loss that leaves a hole in your soul. I desperately wanted to say something to help her, to ease her pain, to assure her that the pain gets better but I realized that there is nothing to be said.  There is nothing that was or could have been said to me at that stage of my grief that would have made me believe that the pain would subside even a little bit.  The only thing to do is offer condolences and support.  There is no one else that can travel her path, just as there was no one else who could travel mine.

This brought me to thinking about my own personal journey of grief.  It has been one year, six months and 2 weeks since I began my own journey.  It has not been a an easy journey thus far and it is far from over.  There have been many ups and down on this journey, there have been many dark days when I felt the weight of the world on me and the emptiness left in my soul by Addy's passing felt like it would consume me. There have also been many wonderful days, days when I have been able to smile and remember her fondly.
In the beginning, there were only dark days but gradually the light began to peek through and the good days became more and more frequent.  Eventually, there came a time when the good days far outnumbered the bad but the bad days are still there, and tend to resurface just when I least expect it.  

With the loss of baby Charlie last month, I feel like I got sent back to start.  Well maybe a little bit past start but still it was a major rewind to the whole process.  The bad days came back in full force, this time mourning the loss of two children.  I feel like I am on a tandem journey now.  On one side I am still mourning the loss of Adeline on the other I am mourning the loss of baby Charlie at a time when I should still be pregnant.  The loss of Adeline rock our whole world and turned everything we had hoped for upside down.  I found the aftermath of her loss to be much less difficult that with the loss of Charlie.  The loss was again  heartbreaking of course, but with the added pain of no longer being pregnant.  I did not realize how hard that part would be.  After we lost Addy, I never had trouble being around pregnant women or newborns.  I had so much time to process in the little bubble of the NICU and I went home with a beautiful baby boy.  This time around, walking out of the maternity ward with empty arms was terrible.  I then had to go home and pack up my maternity clothes, because I already fit back into regular clothes.  Every pregnant women that I have run into is a giant reminder of what I should have and have lost.  I cannot even count the number of times that I have caught myself protecting my belly from my crashing boys, only to realize that there is no longer anything in there.  I never saw these things coming and they have knocked me for a bit of a loop.
The two losses are and the grief that goes along with it are so different that I feel like I am traveling two different paths at the same time.  The loss of Charlie brought back so many of the feelings that I had after loosing Addy and the difficult days flooded back, but the light is starting to peek through again and this time I know what to expect.  I know there will be a break in the clouds and the good days will someday outnumber the bad again.  If there was one thing I wish I could give to someone begining their journey of grief it would be this knowledge.  Unfortunately, that is knowledge that only comes from traveling the path you have been set on.  There is nothing that anyone can say to prepare you for this journey and it is not one that anyone can take for you.  Grief is a journey that you must face yourself, though luckily, not one that you have to face alone.