Good Grief: Month 9

Last month was probably the most painful for me since the time we spent in the hospital with Elle, but the last two weeks I have felt better than I have since the accident.

It's hard to explain. I have prayed for hope. I've prayed for healing. I've prayed to grieve in a healthy way. My stake president said in a regional stake adults' meeting, "It doesn't matter who you are or what you are going through, if you are living the commandments, you are entitled to peace and joy." I took that to heart. I counted on it and expected to feel that in my life. These past two weeks I have felt a true comfort following me around. It's a peace I've never recognized before, almost a sense of joy. A feeling of well being. The feeling has stayed with me—it hasn't been fleeting, or coming and going. The pain has crept back in at times, but I am buffered by hope and a very real sense of comfort.

Those few weeks spent anticipating Elle's birthday were much harder than I had expected. I'm not particularly sentimental, so I thought a date on a calendar wouldn't necessarily make my pain worse. But, I was wrong. Rob could barely talk that day. Her birthday brought home the fact that I had already missed her fourth year of life. Time was passing without her. It brought home what would have been and what should have been. Elle would have turned five. I would have given her her first friend party. I would've been so proud of my beautiful five-year-old girl who wasn't a toddler anymore, who was ready for school. I would've been in awe of how quickly our family was maturing and entering a new and exciting phase of life.

I try to embrace the fact that our family is entering that new and exciting phase, two years earlier. I try to remember I won't miss out on a single day with my four year old, and I will celebrate Elle's 5th birthday with her someday with her friends.

Because her birthday was so tough emotionally, I'm better prepared for the fact that Christmas, and especially the one-year anniversary of her death, may bring fresh pain. Last Christmas and the weeks just after are the most recent memories I have of Elle. Approaching the one-year mark I imagine will feel as though we are reliving those events. But, Thanksgiving was a good day, and I am more and more confident that after this year of trauma, painful adjustments, changing family dynamics, confusion, intense and prolonged suffering, hopelessness, this year of firsts without her, I am confident the pain won't get worse. It won't abruptly end, but gradually by degrees, I believe the wounds will begin to heal.

I can see the progress I've made over this past year for the first time. But most of all, I am so grateful for the testimony I have, through this experience, that Heavenly Father loves us, and He allows Elle and my dad and Elle's great-grandparents and others who I don't recognize to comfort us. I know with greater assurance that Elle still exists, and that we will all be together again. And so, I will wait.