So much in our lives has dramatically changed since having and losing Lillian. The way we do absolutely everything is just different. The way we live feels different, the way we exist with each other is different, the way we interact with the people and world around us is just completely different. The crazy part is that at once it's different in a way that makes us both appreciate life, as we now know how incredibly fragile it is and how fleeting it can be for some, and it's different because she's not physically with us every day but not a single second passes without us feeling her presence. She's with us...but she's not. It's a beautifully cruel feeling. It is quite literally a thing we hold with us every day. I see everything in a whole different light. My view of this world is forever changed. I am at once so grateful that this tiny little baby was able to affect me so dramatically and I am forever heartbroken and searching for this little baby that I don't get to hold every day. Beautifully cruel.
So often when a couple loses a child there is a lot of attention and eyes on the mother. So much gets focused on us because we are the ones that carry the baby; and we hold the physical proof that this baby existed and was born and was here; but I really want everyone that reads this to know that we cannot forget about the dads and we cannot for a moment think that the daddies go through anything less painful...if anything their pain is worse because they have to not only endure what mom is enduring but his pain is for his child and for his wife. It's a double whammy.
Over this past weekend, Jason and I were in Target. We were shopping for some new couch pillows, which we did not find because (we think) we hit up the store after a busy weekend as their inventory just seemed largely picked over and empty. We're browsing around the home decor area, and Jason turns around and looks over my shoulder and points at something; all I saw was pain in his eyes and I turned around, (expecting to see a little girl, Lily's age, which happens constantly so I was ready). Instead, it was one of those room set ups that Target does now in the middle of the house stuff; and it was a little kid's bedroom tent thing that are big now. He just stared at it for a moment, and said "I want to hang out in a kid tent with my kid! It's not fair. I want that. Why can't we have that? What did we do??!" What the hell do you say to your husband when stuff like that happens?? There's nothing to say, because we didn't do anything. Though you know that you didn't "do" anything to deserve this terrible thing that happened, it's impossible not to have moments like that and sometimes they happen in Target. When your husband is having a moment and is feeling the raw unfairness of your situation, you hold him, and you really look at him, and you see him and you show him that you're going to get through the moment together. You stand with him. The terrible thing though is that it's never going to be just that moment; those moments will happen now for the rest of our lives, and some of them just bring you to your knees. Sometimes it's a tiny little jacket you see that you can literally envision your child in, sometimes it's another little kid that might be around your kid's age, other times, it's a bedroom tent at Target. It's never just a bedroom tent either, it's what it all represents. It's bonding, it's father daughter time, it's "daddy's gonna buy you something awesome!" It's "let's have fun together", it's "let's surprise mommy", it's "let's have a campout in the living room". Small moments to some, they're absolutely enormous to us.
After the miscarriage on Valentine's Day, it's been bringing up a lot of our old sad feelings again, (not that they're ever that far away, AND not that they're even that old, as it's only been 8 months, 4 days 1 hour and ten minutes; because those feelings, they're always simmering right under the surface). This time though we expect them, we know those feelings more intimately now, we won't ever get used to them, but we've been learning how to navigate them. They say "it does get easier"; you hear that a lot right after a loss, and what you want that to mean is that your feelings of hopelessness and hunger for your child go away, but (very unfortunately) that's not what that means. The "it gets easier" refers to it becoming easier to live your day-to-day with tremendous grief and sadness; because that hunger for your child is now something that you will have with you until you take your last breath. The truth of the matter is that though that is always there, what gets easier is living with it; and on one hand without Lily we'd be blissfully unaware of this feeling but we'd also be blissfully unaware of how deeply you fall in love with your child...and honestly, I'm not sure I'd ever want to not know this level and this depth of love.
It's pretty easy to allow your individual, tremendous grief to cloud the fact that both of you are hurting. What's important is remembering that it didn't happen to one of you, it's happened to both of you. What's important is to acknowledge that you're going to have your moments at different times, but what's more important is to remember to hold each other up when that happens.
