Good Grief: months 1 & 2

Over the last five months, I've written some notes about the grief I've experienced. Just keep in mind, these notes describe the worst moments and not the times when I feel better, hopeful, even happy :) I'm convinced that grief heals, hence the title "Good Grief."

One month:
The first month or two after Elle's accident, I felt grief in waves. I was still in shock but didn't know it. Often the grief would sneak up on me and wash over me violently. But then it would retreat quickly, and I would go on trying to navigate the strange state my life was in.

In "A Grief Observed," C.S. Lewis wrote, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness.... I keep on swallowing." I feel that and a sense of profound dread, like in nightmares, when I "remember" she's gone.

Two months:
I feel the grief settling in on me and moving in for a longer stay. I no longer feel it in waves; I am standing neck-deep in a flood of longing for my baby girl who was just here, and who I won't ever see again in this life. The sadness lives with me and weighs heavily on my heart and holds a thousand tears behind my eyes. The tears leak out whenever I'm alone—in the car, washing dishes, in the shower, on my bike, lying in bed late at night or before I get up in the morning. I hear myself make sounds I never made before I lost her. Moans that hurt my chest and come from somewhere so deep inside it is primal. I often think The loss is too great.

Life goes on, so I fight to stay in a space where I can function normally. I fight because it would be so easy to let the grief consume me, and I won't be a shell of a mother for my kids.

I'm profoundly disappointed. I don't get to have her. Not in my entire lifetime.

The kids at their young ages have to face the harsh reality that someone you love deeply can suddenly disappear from your life.

I thought Heavenly Father would never take one of our children. That He knew I was not the kind of person who could emotionally survive a loss of this magnitude. I realize I've been feeling betrayed.

But just as suddenly as that realization hits, I know I'm wrong. Heavenly Father is the last Being who would ever betray me. And the Savior has experienced my loss through my eyes and heart. I know They will heal me.