Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Missing Grace...

Today I miss Grace so very much it's debilitating. 12 months, 12 days since her death, it's not an anniversary or day of significance, so why today?? As I desperately flip through my books on how to "constructively" grieve in hopes alleviating my pain even slightly, I am reminded that many live with devastating loss and each has decisions to make with regards to how to live with it and I am responsible for determining how I will live with mine. I truly feel that I have many responsibilities in this whole process. I'm aware that my pain hurts those who love me so I often (subconsciously even) curb my pain to protect those who will be hurt by it. I don't want to be submersed in bitterness for doing so I feel would be an injustice to Grace for it would draw more attention to her tragic death then it would to her short yet wonderful life. As Eli's arrival quickly approaches and I prepare to bring him home, I struggle to balance my past and future so that he will be raised with as much love and enthusiasm as was Grace. I feel indebted to those who worked feverishly in attempts to save Grace's life and would like to aid their efforts to deliver greater success in the future while desperately trying to inject a level of "purpose" in Grace's death via fundraising and new research discoveries. I heard Terry Fox's mother on T.V. the other night and she said "He had to die so that so many others could live". I guess this desperation to find logic or purpose in the death of a child is shared. So... on a day like today when I am struggling with my reality, heartbroken with my circumstance, jealous of the reality of others, how do I survive? I guess acceptance that I will never again experience a world with unbridled happiness that comes to me effortlessly. I will grieve the loss of Grace with each breath that I take, constantly aware of the void that has been left but at the same time aware that I am responsible for my own happiness, no one else, so now that my new reality does not allow it to flow over me effortlessly, I must seek it out and artificially inject it into my world in hopes that as time passes this happiness will be available to me with less effort. I once read that the only thing we really know about Heaven is the departure, yet simultaneously this departure is the only part of Hell we need to know. It kind of feels like Hell today.

Mama misses you baby.
L~

2 Comments:

Blogger CheechooNielsen said...

Lesley,
Oh my.
I think we had learned to embrace hope and fear when our children's lives were so compromised. Now, we have to embrace sorrow, resentfully.
I miss being Nayohan's mom. I miss seeing/hearing Miyopin play with her sister. I see the grief in my husband's eyes.
"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go."
Its all too much and I get so tired of trying to find the "brighter side."

3:26 p.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

I just want you to know that I (and I am sure many others) am still so inspired by your strength. You are allowed to have days like this, they are inevitable ... even those of us who have so little to be unhappy about have days like this. What I admire most is that you have the strength and courage to go forward and continue … continue to make Grace's life meaningful even to those who did not know her. Even as you feel this way your first thought is how it might affect those around you. You amaze me … even when you feel weak, you are strong.

12:52 a.m.  

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