The broken road of grief.

Image Source

Grief is so difficult.
There are layers and layers to one's grief.
No two people experience the loss of the same person in the same way.
Words that may comfort one person may hurt another.

For some grief washes over them like a giant wave.
They get pulled down in a tidal wave and feel like they struggle to breathe.
They're lost out to sea in waves of emotions.
Fighting and struggling to keep their head above the water.

For others the loss they experienced doesn't hit them for years.
One day something triggers a memory or a moment they had tried hard to forever erase.
It may knock them off their feet or they may continue to fight it for a while.
But we all grieve.

I experienced my first loss of a loved one at the age of three.
My great grandmother passed away and I attended the funeral.
I have attended more funerals than I am old.
At age 12 I lost my grandpa whom I was very close to.
It took me 7 years before I was able to visit his grave and fully grieve.

But what about the loss that has no closure of a service?
How do you find the closure that we so desperately desire?

After we lost Zoe Mae I really struggled with that.
She was so small that no one but my husband and I knew about her life.
There would never be any proof but a positive pregnancy test that she even existed.

Grief is a broken road we walk.

What I never expected to be so difficult though was my son's grief.
For months after we told him about his sister, he never spoke her name.
Never once asked questions.
He seemed to take it in stride and I guess I thought maybe because he didn't know till months after we had lost her that it was never real to him.
But after we told him that mommy was pregnant again things seemed to change.

For a while he was angry and would lash out for no apparent reason.
Then he started asking questions.
My husband and I have always agree that we would always give age appropriate answers for our children's questions. I never thought I would have to answer questions on the death of a sibling they never got to meet.

Loss and death are hard for anyone at any age but a child should not have to lose their innocence so early.

He began drawing pictures of our family.
The pictures always include Mommy, Daddy, Monkey, Bug, the new baby, and Zoe.
And while beautiful it makes this momma's heart ache to see my son so deeply changed by the loss of his sister.

Today he's sad.
All morning he has wanted nothing more than to snuggle under a blanket with me.
To be extra close to me and for me to hold him.
We sat that way for a couple of hours just holding hands and snuggling.
He's cried a lot today over things that normally he wouldn't think twice about.
He has talked to me about how his heart is sad and how he misses Zoe.

But that's how grief is.
It hits us when we least expect it.
It leaves us feeling breathless and exhausted.
It's a broken road we walk; not because we want to but because we must.

I often question and wonder if we did the right thing in telling our oldest son about Zoe.
Babies aren't suppose to die but sometimes for reasons we'll never understand they do.
Did we do the right thing in telling our son why mommy was so sad for so long?
Did we tell him for the right reasons?
Or did we simply tell him to help our own grief?
I may never know what was the right thing to do.
But we did what we thought was best with the information we had at the time.

Zoe went to be with Jesus and we're left behind with our grief.