It has been ten months now. I wish I could say I'm completely resolved to again trust God & pray as before. I am better. I am beginning to pray a little from time to time though I can't say that I am actually sure who this version of God is yet. And quite frankly I'm not real sure what I can pray for anymore. But I'm trying to make a conscious decision to trust and have faith. I am trying to find my way back from the darkness. Some days --too many days-- it still overtakes me. I am now closing in on that magical "one year" mark. I remember reading over and over that "The first year is the hardest." Leading me to believe it would be better after that first anniversary. Ten months in I realize I can stop looking for that. No miracle is going to suddenly take place and magically erase all the pain and emptiness that has become my constant companion.
In the beginning that is all I could think of --getting to the place where that would happen - muddling, struggling, hanging on by my teeth and toenails just to survive it and make it to that magical first year mark; which of course I knew would be very difficult in and of itself but after that very difficult day - I'd be all better. We could finally move. We could sell the house. I could make major decisions again. I could sleep. I would stop eating myself to death. I could stop sobbing at random. I could be in crowds or attend social events again. I could go through the kids things finally. I would be healed. By then, I would have learned to live with this horrific loss. I would be able to trust, pray and find comfort in my faith again. I could rekindle my shaky relationship with God. I could enjoy family functions, holidays and vacations again. I would find purpose in all this pain, realize that something good has come from it and be able to thank God in it - not for it - but in it. And all of my friends would come back - sounds kind of like a country song in reverse doesn't it?
And at one time, I actually believed all of this.
I now know better. And I know that I am at least five months of "sitting in the bone marrow clinic" behind in the process. And I know that since I pretended my way through most of the first year I have postponed any first year progress I might have made but besides all of that I have come to the realization that "this" will never be over. There is no magical point in time that is going to make me not want Brian back again; no appointed date that will make me okay with never seeing any of them again. There is no set time when I will not ache for that baby and want him back in my life and back in my lap again; no day ever when it won't matter to me what really happened.
There will likely come, as there are now, days that I will be able to get through without dwelling on it, outwardly grieving for them or crying for them whenever I'm alone. But I now realize that those days are fluid. They are not here as permanent fixtures but only as much-needed reprieves.
The misery will return. You adjust to the reality of the truth. You do integrate the loss into your world. You get up and you function inside the misery. Sometimes giving in to it and sometimes not but you do not wake up one day and it is just gone. There will not suddenly come a day when you are fine and you function just like before. You are not the same person. This is not the same life. It can --I believe, I hope, I pray-- be good again but if so it will be a long, long time coming.
I can no more be "healed" and have the same life I had before anymore that I can go back to being a five-year old again. That ship has sailed. I cannot go back to the innocence of childhood and I cannot go back to the innocence of life before this catastrophic loss. I am not that person anymore. Just as I am not that five-year old anymore. My view of the world, my faith, my version of God, my trust, everything not only in my world but inside of me --has been forever altered.
Whatever I next grow to believe and whoever I am when this shakes out - will absolutely not be who I was a year ago. I may be better and I hope and pray that I am but nothing is going to magically restore me. It may be new but it will never be normal.
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