I notice a lot of times it’s
really hard for me to explain how I’m feeling, which is maybe why I’m writing
and journaling more than I normally do.
The best way I can explain how I’ve been feeling lately is “waves,” and
“breaths taken away.” What I mean
by “waves” is the waves of emotion that come and go. My counselor described it best as, the second stage of grief
(after shock) is when your emotions are in the driver’s seat, and they have
control of you. Your emotions
decide when something will hit you and you have no power to stop it. The third stage is when your emotions
are still there but you get in the driver’s seat and start regaining
control. You start telling your
emotions when they can come and go.
I’m definitely in the second stage. My emotions are in control and they come in waves. Sometimes I can be hugging someone that
is crying on my behalf and my eyes are dry, the next second someone can ask me
how I’m doing and I start crying.
It just depends and it’s so unpredictable. There’s a song “You Make Me
Brave,” and in it there are the lyrics, “wave after wave, crashes over me,
crashes over me.” And that’s what
it feels like, waves crashing over me.
Then there are the breaths
being taken. This is when I’m
going about my normal day and all of a sudden it hits me, a thought, a visual,
a song, a smell, a memory….whatever it is, it hits me almost like the wind getting
knocked out of me and I can’t catch my breath. For that brief second, I can’t talk or get anything
out. I inhale and stop. I’m either going to break down and cry
or dismiss the thought and keep moving on with what I was doing. 99% of the time I dismiss the thought
so that I can continue to move on, because 99% of the time my breath gets taken
away in public and I avoid the public breakdowns at all costs. I didn’t realize that “grace” was such
a common name when we named her.
Now I meet so many little blonde girls by the name of Grace, I lose my
breath every time. This happened
the other day, I was at the Notre Dame park with Avery pushing her on a
swing. A cute girl Avery’s age was
on the swing next to us and her mom and I were making small talk. The little blonder 2-year old was named
Grace, which I thought was really neat.
Her mom was pregnant and I was running out of small talk questions so I
asked her how far along she was and when she was due. She was five months pregnant and due at the end of
September, same as I would have been with Karis. I about nearly chocked on my own breath. A daughter Avery’s age named Grace,
expecting one the same time I was supposed to expect Karis, and these were
people I just had met. It’s those
times where my breath is taken away, but then I push the thought away to keep
going and exhale without skipping a beat in the eyes of whoever I’m talking
with. They know no difference
while I am swallowing down pain. Then
the weird part. I’ve dismissed the
thought as quickly as it came and I don’t know where the thought goes. It travels off somewhere, never to be
processed or digested well. It wouldn’t
be that big of a deal except it happens so many times a day that I’m constantly
swallowing down little tid bits of hurt that I probably should be processing
more. It seems like everything
always happens while I’m at a park with Avery. I need to start a new summer activity.
The other day I was making
small talk with a sweet woman, probably my age, and learning about her kids and
family. They had just moved to the
area. The woman paused, looked
down at Avery and asked the dreaded question, “so is she your only one?” I stopped. My breath left me for .2 seconds. I didn’t know how to respond. No, she’s not my only
one, my other one is in heaven, not here swinging on swings with us. But do I really do into all the
details to someone I’m never going to speak to again? I rather not.
Breath taken.
Inhale.
Exhale.
“Yes, she is our only one.”
I felt like I was betraying
Karis as I said it. Should I of
explained? Was it worth a break
down?
“Grief is like the
ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is
overwhelming. All we can do is
learn to swim.” Vicki Harrison
At the beginning learning how
to swim is hard. You get water up
your nose, you gag on water, swallow water, flail your arms and kick your feet
and don’t go anywhere. You see how
deep the water is and you fear your might drown trying to get to where your
headed. Maybe it’s safer to just
hold onto the edge and not try to swim to the other side? Then there’s no chance of
drowning. But then you will never
go anywhere. So you continue to
push yourself to learn to swim.
You take baby steps. You do
not fear the deep water, you press forward knowing you won’t have perfect form,
but you will reach the other side.
If you get water up your nose a few times here and there, you don’t
panic, it’s part of the learning process.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Breathe deeply.
We will learn how to swim in
grief; by the grace of our God who is the ultimate swim coach.
“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep
waters. He rescued me from my
powerful enemy….he rescued me because he delighted in me.” Psalm 18:16-19
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