In any journey through depression and grief, there are steps forwards, and there are days when we run as fast as we possibly can and stay in the same place. And there are days when we feel as though we are plunging into deep darkness, when the progress we were making so slowly and painstakingly seems to have stalled. Days when we seem to be peering at everything through a layer of treacle, sticky and dark. It’s very easy to feel as though we’re tumbling backwards, as though the fragile progress we worked so hard for has just slipped away.
Grief changes everything. Once we have experienced and lived with grief, real grief, we will never be the same again. Grief for the loss of an infant is a harder, longer journey, because we cannot say, “She had a long life.” We cannot say, “It was his time.” This is a lonely kind of death, for those of us left behind.
Our babies are not lonely. They have never experienced hunger, cold, or thirst. They were surrounded by love for their whole lives, and from our wombs they went straight to the arms of Jesus. I cannot pity them.
But we are lonely even when we’re not alone, we parents with aching arms, we siblings with no-one walking beside us. It is us whom I pity.
I’ve seen grief compared to a journey. This is not altogether useful. It is a journey whose beginning we do not choose, much of which we do not enjoy, and which will end only with our own death. But the analogy isn’t completely unhelpful. It is like a journey in that every painstaking step takes us further from the beginning. And we are, slowly and inexorably, travelling upwards, without stopping.
Yes, there are days, weeks, sometimes months when we stumble into the darkness after a period of relative light. But these are not backward steps. They are not even diversions from the steady upward trend. They are sidesteps.
My latest period of darkness started over a conversation with a dear friend. Our first children are very close in age, about ten weeks apart. We were talking about ante-preschool placements and she mentioned how valuable it is to have guaranteed time to spend with her younger child and to take part in activities for the younger one. We were both shocked when her words felt like a punch to my diaphragm.
I have so much time now. Since August I’ve been wondering why I seem unable to make better use of it. And suddenly I understand.
I should not be spending the time alone. I should be spending it with my younger children. But they are not here. Instead of packing people into warm clothes and then into pushchairs and heading into town to a toddler group, I go back home, alone, to an empty house.
But – this is important – although this has been the trigger for an intense period of grieving, it is not a backwards step. I have not tumbled back into darkness. I have stepped forward to embrace the next patch of darkness on my journey.
Does this feel very different?
Not at the moment. At the moment I am sad. I’m tired. I lack energy. I’m close to tears all the time. My patience with poor K is not great. This is what depression looks and feels like. And it will last as long as it lasts. I can’t wave a magic wand to make it go away. I can’t do anything to speed it up. All I can do is be patient, and try to be kind to myself.
But I’ve travelled far enough along this path to be sure that it is how I will feel when this bleak darkness retreats that matters.
I needed to acknowledge that I miss my little ones. Yes, I talk and write about baby loss and miscarriage, and that’s important, but most of my children would not be tiny babies any more, and it’s not tiny babies I am missing. And that matters.
So I am certain that this is a sidestep on my journey, and that when I find the light again, I will find I have stepped upwards, perhaps significantly so.
But it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.
Joy in the Mourning 