This series began as a social media project for Infant Loss Awareness Month. I am going to re-work it just a little to make it fitting to re-tell on the blog.
I remember attending some support groups shortly after my son died, and seeing others in these groups who were now many years out from their loss, still grieving in a pretty intense way. When I was so fresh in my grief, and still in a place that it still took intentional effort to simply breathe, it was overwhelming to think I’d feel the same way three, or five, or ten years later.
And now, I am going to offer you the gift of my hindsight. I am sitting 12 years out from having to say goodbye to Lachlan. While I still long for him and miss his presence every single day, the intensity of my grief is nothing like it was in the beginning.
In the words of the good C.S. Lewis, “There was no sudden, striking, and emotional transition. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight, when you first notice them they have already been going on for some time.” “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?”
This is the story of grief. Day by day, nothing changes, but looking back on my last 12 years, everything is different.
While I cannot give any timeline of when the shift has happened, my goal for this series is going to be both a look into what my grief felt like in its early days, and a reflection of how that grief feels now. I hope it is a window into the soul of a grieving mama that both acknowledges the depths of pain that have been traversed and that it will bring a ray of hope to knowing that it’s possible to live again with a peaceful and happy heart.