Disclaimer: This is not directed to any blogger, this is a "real" life thing...
I feel so....well...I dunno. Misplaced. Yeah, misplaced.
So I am not a sweet little naive thing in my first pregnancy, everything is going to be perfect, la la la.
But I feel like I did the very thing that disqualifies me from grieving for my son - I got pregnant again. Like that cancels everything out.
It isn't anything that anyone said. But it is the women who recoil when they see my belly and I know exactly why (remember I live in a smallish Canadian city, where the loss community is miniscule). Or the women who do that thing where they pretend to be happy for you, but their eyes betray it all.
That's what I have done - I have betrayed the grief and loss community. I am now one of them.
I am too damned happy to be around people who know what real grief is. Like I have somehow forgotten. I feel like I have to constantly prove that I have a broken heart too, though I have done a hell of a lot of work to heal it the best that I could.
I have hope in my life, and I know that this emotion is incomprehensible and disgusting to a person who's loss was 3 weeks or 3 months or sometimes even 3 years ago.
But, dammit. I have spent all of my expendable energy for the last 20 months learning how to live again. I have journalled, I have blogged, I have been counseled, I have gone to a variety of support groups, I have created, I have memorialized, I have read, I have researched.
I have worked for this.
Dear (name omitted for anonymity),
I'm sorry I left you behind. It wasn't to hurt you, it was to find happiness in my life again. Where I could. My son is still dead, always will be dead, and nothing will fill that void. If you remember that I always carry that with me, despite the blossoming belly, despite the glow in my eyes, despite me saying things like "I don't know if I will have time in February".... if you remember that, can you forgive me for taking another chance?
I know that you just want your own chance and you can't see past that. I'm sorry. I wish I could give you what you want. I am sorry that your health and your age and your marriage is not helping you in any way.
I feel so damned guilty. And I am sorry that you hurt.
But I am still going to go after my own happiness.
d
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5 comments:
wow....thank you for writing this. I truly understand what you are feeling - it is so hard to to "move on" and be happy, b/c you always feel like letting go somehow is forgetting. But, the truth is, no matter what you do or how much time passes, there is nothing that will ever replace or make you forget your beautiful baby. That baby is a part of you forever, a part of your very being and will always be your first child, a child that you will always love and cherish.
Getting pregnant again is, in its own part, honoring his memory more than any other thing you could do.
You're saying, "Hey, I loved you so much, I'm risking it/doing it all again."
Nothing better than that.
I lost my first baby in July. I cannot imagine ever forgetting him, ever getting over it, only learning to live with it and integrating him into my life and into who I am somehow. So I also can't imagine anyone else who has lost a baby "getting over it". It's not a maths problem -1 + 1 = 0.
I've read through a lot of blogs including yours. But at first I avoided reading the ones where people had just had their next baby. "I'm not going to get anything out of that," I thought. Those people are much too happy. But after a bit I went through the archives and read the story from the beginning. Anyone who reads about the pain, loss and bewilderment knows that you will never forget it and that you will always know what it is like.
I'm glad that you are pregnant again and that you can have happy moments. May there be many more in the future.
I get it...I really do. But let me put another spin on it for you. Maybe it's not that other people see your happiness as a betrayal so much as they see your happiness reflecting their own failures. Some days, I will admit, it is very hard to read your blog. Not because I want to deny you your happiness, but because it reminds me of how I have failed...and it hurts. Try not to be so hard on your friend. She sounds like she has a lot of pain to deal with...and SHE doesn't fit in with YOU anymore. Another loss for her to deal with. That has got to be tougher than being pregnant and being able to look forward with hope.
I agree with Catherine.
Hugs,
M
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