That is what we had for dinner tonight. Orange chicken and fried rice. It's become somewhat of a grief ritual, if you will.
It's hard, the first little bit, deciding what days to recognize. Do I recognize the day that she died? The day I delivered her body? The day we buried her? What about her due date? Do I count each week like I would if I was pregnant?
The day we left the hospital with empty arms was arguably one of the hardest days I have experienced. Many times I wonder if I did everything right? I am better able to deal with those thoughts now. Instead of sitting with guilt, I accept that what I did was exactly what I needed to in that moment for me and my family. There is always a different view, looking back on things, but the way everything happened did so just the way it needed to.
Ty and the girls came and picked me up after I had handed Gracie over to the mortuary, and the reality that we were not bringing a baby home set in for the girls. And it was dinner time. Hunger and grief don't go well together. At least for kids. We stopped off at a Chinese Restaurant and got orange chicken and fried rice. Nothing had ever tasted so good and so horrible at the same time. It filled the need for sweets, protein and salty all at once. But eating after loosing a baby was pure torture.
For the next two weeks, that was all that tasted good. I ordered two servings at a time and they would feed us for a few days. Each week after for about a month and a half, at least every Tuesday (and some times more than that), I went and picked some up.
Today was 4 months. Today we had orange chicken and fried rice for dinner.
I didn't think today would be hard. I am at a point where if you ask how I am doing and my girls are still awake, my answer will be positive. It may be true, it may be fake, but I still have to function. It doesn't for one second mean that I am over this. It doesn't mean that I am "healed" OR that I am in denial. It doesn't mean that babies and pregnant women and cemeteries and pictures on Facebook and well meaning (but more than slightly clueless) comments and conversations don't hurt. (**side note: this does not mean I hate babies or pregnant women and so forth, it just means it can sting. A lot.) It means I have a responsibility to my children to function. And it is still so fresh, so recent, that thinking about Gracie, missing her, grieving, can knock me off my feet. Someone in the store the other day was wearing the same lotion we used for Gracie's blankets (we couldn't put any on her so the night before, I rubbed the lotion into a bunch of blankets) and that was like a punch to the soul and left me barely functioning for the rest of the day. When Katie and Kotah are asleep, then is the time I can sit and think. And honestly, we have had so much continue to hit us that even then, its hard to take time to allow myself to grieve.
So today was hard. Mothers day was hard. I wasn't expecting mothers day to be hard, but I fell asleep late into the night holding our Gracie bear and doll. Sobs lingering in the air and my pillow drenched with tears. (I even took them to church with me that day, because I needed to acknowledge, just to myself, that all my girls were with me.)
I can put on a smile. And most times I mean it. I'm focused on the here and now. I'm happy to be doing yard work or playing with my girls. Happy that Ty passed a work test or got a promotion. I don't have the time to sit with my grief a lot. Some nights I run from it. Some days I work through it, cleaning my house top to bottom (although that hasn't happened in a while....) But it is there.
Gracie is a part of me. She changed my life in a way I can't begin to describe, and her loss compounded that even more so. I have come to know myself and my Savior in a deeper way. I have learned to be more accepting of myself and in extension, of others. My heart broke, and it can never be fixed. I can't stitch it back together. I can allow Christs love and atonement to fill the holes, but it will never be the same as it was before, for both good and bad.
So just because I smile doesn't mean I am fixed. Just because I cry doesn't mean I am broken. While the tears that run down my face are filled with sadness and loss, they also are filled with love and hope. Love and hope are also a part of grief. I love the last part of this song- "I know, I'll see you again someday." Love, hope and grief.
Who You'd Be Today
