A Decade of Grief

10 years. A decade. Yet, somehow, there are times that ten years feels like a lifetime. Grief is like that sometimes. It feels different day to day, and moment to moment. There are also times it feels like just yesterday and I still feel the overwhelming heaviness of having to give you back for the last time. I will always call that the hardest decision I have ever made – how do you decide that you have held your baby long enough? How do you decide that you’re ready to send them to a funeral home?

In those moments, I remember feeling a deep confusion. How was the world still turning around me? How was it there all around the world people were going about their day or enjoying a nice family dinner or getting ready for bed while I was laboring with my baby that I knew had died? My world was so upside down that I couldn’t fathom that it wasn’t that way for everyone in that moment.

It took a long time and a lot of therapy for my brain to wrap around all of it. I learned a lot of lessons along the way, the first one being that we really need to normalize therapy still. At the time, no one suggested that I talk to someone. It would be almost three years before I sought a therapist. Therapy and medicine were a vital part of recovery. The other big lesson I learned was there is no timeline. There is no blueprint for grief. If someone tells you to move on or is annoyed with your process, that is on them. Do what you need to do. I am at a point now where I am able to turn my grief into something good, but I will always have a good cry at least on his birthday and the hole in my heart may change shape, but it never gets smaller. Grief doesn’t go away – it only changes.

On the day Barrett was born, I couldn’t picture myself going about life a week later, much less ten years later. I often watch the girls doing something and imagine what it would be like to have him bouncing around in the middle of them and I promise there is nothing I will ever want more than that.

My sweet boy lived only in my womb. He never took a breath here on earth. But I am just as proud of him as I am of the girls. People all around the country and the world know his name and will do a random act of kindness in his memory today. That is all I can ask – to continue showing the purpose of the short time he was here with me. When I see the kindness put back into the world, it makes that hole in my heart feel a little lighter – not smaller, but lighter.

Ten years ago, I couldn’t imagine ten years without my boy. But I am here. His sisters and I have built a pretty beautiful life and while I wish he was sharing it with us physically, he is always with us. It’s his Molly bear on my bookshelf. It’s gifts people gave me in his memory sitting in my office. It’s the garden stone with his name at my front door. It’s the kindness infused all around us in his name.

I can’t hold him, but I can see him. I can feel him. I am so proud to be his mom. A decade of grief. A decade of love.